


Siren Song

by killabeez



Series: And the Devil Makes Three [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/M, Future Fic, Het, Hurt Sam Winchester, Incest, Infidelity, Kid Fic, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Psychic Abilities, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Sibling Incest, Slash, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-08
Updated: 2011-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:52:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 71,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killabeez/pseuds/killabeez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean leave Dean's pregnant wife and daughter behind to hunt for an answer to what's killing Azazel's last remaining psychics. But life on the road means the two of them against the world, just like it always did, and they struggle to find a balance between their fierce love for each other and Dean's commitment to his family. Meanwhile, though Sam forswore his psychic abilities years ago, he is being drawn inevitably into a battle that will demand every weapon at their disposal. Worse, the Winchesters both know that the time will soon come when they must go home and face the consequences of their choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: A huge thank you to ruby_jelly , who volunteered to beta unasked, and followed through with fantastic, thoughtful comments and excellent, detailed suggestions. Thanks to her tireless efforts, this is a much more succinct story than it would have been. Many heartfelt thanks also go to pat_t, who generously shared her time, wisdom, and experience to correct all the scenes that involved hospitals and medical treatment. I did work on the story quite a bit after they did, so if mistakes remain, it's my fault, not theirs.
> 
> Next, massive thanks and much love to marciaelena for creating the extraordinarily beautiful art for this story. It's mostly her fault I'm still in this fandom, so it's fitting that I was lucky enough to draw her as my artist. More than once, she made this worthwhile when I was more than ready to give up on it. (If you click on an embedded piece of art, it will take you to the full size image. Oh, so worthwhile!) [Click here for the soundtrack.](http://killabeez.livejournal.com/374133.html)
> 
> Finally, thanks to wendy and thehighwaywoman for all their hard work in running the spn_j2_bigbang challenge. And {{{hugs}}} to destina and everyone else who encouraged me to finish this story.

  
****[](http://seacouver.slashcity.net/bigbang/sirensong_banner.jpg)  


****

  
_And when Ruby says, “You didn't need the feather to fly._  
You had it in you the whole time, Dumbo!” Sam thinks  
it might be the first one hundred percent true thing she's  
ever said to him.

—Lucifer Rising, _by Carver Edlund_

 

* * *

  
Sam Winchester loved his brother so much sometimes that it hurt to breathe. It was only the rest of the time that he flat out wanted to kill him.

"Chipotle _habanero_ beef jerky. Now, that's what I'm talkin' about. Breakfast of champions." Dean grabbed four packages and plopped them on top of Sam's precarious armload of junk food. A packet of Hostess cupcakes shifted dangerously; Sam stopped it from slipping by juggling the pile with one elbow.

"Dude, enough. How much of this crap do you actually plan to eat?"

"That's for me to know, and you to bitch about." Dean dug an elbow into Sam's arm, sending Snickers bars sliding. "C'mon, you know you love it. Road food, man. Perfect balance of sugar, salt, and caffeine—all the major food groups." He started toward the register.

Sam shook his hair out of his eyes. Ten a.m., and the temperature was already over ninety; he was sweating through his T-shirt.

"I seem to recall you were the one who used to complain about never eating anything that didn't come from a mini-mart," he said when he caught up.

Dean slapped Sam on the shoulder, smirking as half the stuff spilled across the counter. "You're a real buzzkill, you know that? Let's go, pay the man."

Sam smiled a tight, apologetic smile at the cashier and put the rest down, digging for his wallet. Dean's hand came to rest against his shoulder, his thumb grazing the bare skin at the back of Sam's neck. Gooseflesh rushed over Sam despite the heat. He froze, a sudden weightless sensation in his stomach. Willing himself not to react, he forced his nerveless fingers to pull out his credit card.

If the guy gave them a funny look, Sam was too busy trying to edge away from Dean to care. "Thanks," he managed, taking the card back and grabbing the bags. At least it was his own card, with his own name on it. At least one thing had changed.

"What's with you?" Dean asked as they stepped out into the glare of the June sun. "You look like somebody just gave you the world's biggest wedgie."

"Don't even think about it."

Sam strode across the parking lot. He could still feel the place on his neck where Dean had touched him; heat curled low in his belly that had nothing to do with the weather. Barely out of Pennsylvania, and he was starting to think he'd been out of his mind to let Dean talk him into this.

They got in and rolled down the windows. Dean half-turned, laying his arm along the back of the seat. "Seriously, what's goin' on with you? An hour ago, you were fine. You feeling okay?"

"Dean, it's like a hundred degrees out. Sue me for not relishing the thought of spending the next twelve hours in a black car with vinyl upholstery and no tinting on the windows." It was sheer desperation that made him say it. Dean had stripped down to his black T-shirt an hour ago. In the close quarters of the car, Sam could smell his shampoo, his skin, and it was hitting him hard that what he'd signed on for, in a moment of weakness, was a king-sized helping of slow death by torture.

Dean looked at him for a long moment. At last he slapped the seat and started the engine. "Tell you what. It just so happens that I am in a really good mood, and for that reason, I'm gonna let that slide. But you malign my car again, and I'm leavin' you by the side of the road."

Sam's lips twitched despite his frustration. "Yeah, sure you are."

They pulled out to the classic oldies station playing the last strains of "Go Your Own Way." Sam stole a surreptitious glance at his brother. Dean wasn't kidding. He really was in a good mood, better than Sam had seen him in days. He didn't think Dean had forgiven him yet for keeping the visions to himself as long as he had, but now that they were doing something about it, maybe there was hope.

"Want to tell me where we're going?" Sam asked as they got back on the highway.

"Texas. Got the hookup on a pretty powerful shaman I wanna talk to." Dean pulled into the left lane and opened up on the gas. The wind lifted Sam's hair from his forehead, and he breathed easier.

"Hell of a drive," he said, like there wasn't a time they would have driven twice as far for less.

"Ellen says she's the best. Says she's got a good chance of figuring out what we're dealing with."

"And this?" Sam touched the gris-gris hanging from the rear-view, his tone gently teasing. Dean had said he was willing to try anything when it came to the fate breathing down Sam's neck. Sam couldn't fault him for trying. Blind hope was better than the naked terror he'd seen on Dean's face when he'd shown up at Sam's house three days ago and demanded the truth about the other psychics.

Dean shot him a sidelong glance. "Protection." At Sam's look, he shrugged. "What? Ain't like we never used hoodoo before."

"You know these things are used for birth control."

"Why, Sammy, something you not telling me?"

"Funny."

"I thought so."

Sam leaned an arm on the edge of the window and let the humid breeze dry the sweat that gathered in every warm crevice and hollow of his skin. "A/C not working?" he asked.

"Savin' it. Gas is expensive enough."

Sam hid a smile. They could have taken Sam's hybrid. It was far from new, but it still would have gotten at least three times the mileage, and they'd have traveled in climate-controlled, UV-tinted comfort. Sam hadn't bothered mentioning it as a possibility for obvious reasons: if Dean had agreed to take any car but the Impala on a road trip—on a hunt to save Sam's life—Sam would have had to exorcise him.

"Ramblin' Man" came on the radio. Sam slid his sunglasses from where they hung on the neck of his T-shirt and put them on. His heart felt like it might show up twice its size on an X-ray, and the light, floating, butterfly sensation in his stomach didn't seem to care that this was the first time they'd road tripped together in a year and a half—that it might be the last time they ever did.

He wondered if this was how Dean felt after he made his deal. Sam had been so furious with him. He'd felt like he was one breath from losing his mind most of that year, and Dean had had the nerve to be happy about it, at least in the beginning.

Sam closed himself up around that insight, knowing he'd never say it out loud. He was thirty years old, and didn't hold much hope of seeing thirty-one. If by some miracle he did, it would be thanks to his infuriating, stubborn, pain-in-the-ass big brother, no different than it had ever been. And if there were names for the things he was feeling, they were written in a language that only he and one other person in the world would understand.

* * *

They stopped for the night an hour on the other side of St. Louis. Dean could barely move, but he tried not to show it. He wasn't used to twelve-hour hauls any more; his ass was numb, and his back felt like it had seized up into a solid knot of dull agony.

"Two queens," Sam said to the motel clerk. Dean couldn't tell if he imagined the flicker of her eyebrow, or the assessment behind the glance she gave him. He fought the blush that threatened to rise. It wasn't like it was the first time, but it was the first time one of those looks had hit home.

The moon slipped behind a cloud as they stepped out of the office into the parking lot. A faint breeze stirred Dean's hair. He took a deep breath, getting a whiff of burgers grilling from the diner across the way. His stomach rumbled. "M'starving. Wanna get something to eat?" Sam shrugged in the way that meant yes.

"Feels weird, doesn't it?" Sam asked, when they'd slid into a booth and had menus open in front of them. He met Dean's look when he glanced up. "This, I mean."

For Dean, it felt like the two of them on the road, on the hunt together, was the life he'd been meant to live. It was the rest of it, the house and the job and the family, that was the anomaly.

But there was no way to say that, to even think it, that didn't make him feel like he was in serious danger of losing his grip on the situation. Sam was still under a death sentence; that hadn't changed. They'd had sex with each other—twice—a fact that made Dean's gut knot up with sick shame all on its own, never mind that he was married, with a kid and another one on the way.

"Define weird," he said, instead of what he was thinking.

Sam looked at Dean with that soft expression that made Dean's face heat up, his stomach sink. That look said Sam had heard what Dean was really thinking, and it was what he'd needed to know. Without warning, Dean flashed on a memory of Sam beneath him, his long fingers slick, getting Dean ready. He swallowed hard and averted his gaze.

The stupid part was that none of the ice-cold fear, no amount of physical discomfort, none of the guilt and unresolved tension between them could dull the steady, singing pressure in his chest. It had been like that all day. Maybe, he thought, if he grabbed Sam right now, got in the car and kept driving, the fate breathing down Sam's neck would never catch them.

Their server appeared at Sam's shoulder. "You guys ready to order?" They ordered cheeseburgers and iced tea, and gave her their menus.

"So, Kansas City," Dean said, getting his mind back on the job with effort. It was where the first of the other psychics had died back in February.

"Yeah, about that. I can talk to the guy, if you want." At Dean's frown, Sam added, "I mean, I know the whole grieving family thing isn't really your gig."

"Dude, I can handle it." Sam wasn't wrong, but Dean protested on general principles.

"All right, just figured I'd offer. How do you want to play it? Insurance investigators?"

"Should work. Save us having to make IDs."

They went on like that, talking about nothing much until their food came, like it was any other case. Like it wasn't years since they'd lived this life. Like every time Dean opened his mouth, he didn't feel like he was gonna slip up and do or say something stupid, something he couldn't take back.

* * *

After dinner, Sam crossed the parking lot and disappeared into the room while Dean leaned against the car and called home.

"Where are you?" Jules asked, her voice sleepy. He pictured her in their bed, belly big with the baby, her breasts full and her hair spilling across the pillow, the phone cradled in the crook of her neck.

"Middle of Nowhere, Missouri. Should hit Kansas City in the morning."

"You doing okay?" she asked, sounding like she wanted a real answer. "Hanging in there?"

"Yeah, we're good." She didn't say anything, like she was waiting for more, so he said, "I'm stubborn as they come, and Sam's the smartest guy I know. If we can't figure this out—" He broke off.

"You will. I know it."

He closed his eyes, pressing his fingers and thumb against the dull headache he'd gotten from driving into the sun. It had faded in the diner, but threatened now like a phantom limb.

"How's Katie?" he asked, to change the subject.

"She's asleep. Misses you already."

"Yeah, me too," Dean said.

"It's okay, you know. I know you miss it, sometimes."

"What, sleepin' in cheap motels?"

"Hunting, smart ass. I know it was hard on you guys, but I also know you were damn good at it. It's not something I'm likely to forget."

As if it were yesterday, Dean remembered the day they'd met. Her little sister had been two months in the grave, killed by a drunk driver, and he and Sam had burned her corpse to ashes before the week was out.

"Yeah, well, right now I'm missing my bed, and the person in it."

"Sucks to be you," she teased.

It came home to him then without warning that he was lying to her every time he opened his mouth. Between one breath and the next, he could barely swallow past the lump in his throat.

"Listen, babe, I should go."

"Tell Sam I said take care. And call me tomorrow when you get where you're going."

"I will. Night, hon."

Dean hit the button and stared at the phone for a minute. _What the fuck are you doing?_ he asked himself.

He tilted his head back and tried to see the stars, but the sky had gone overcast, the night thick with threatening thunderstorms. It had only been the one afternoon, him and Sam, and he'd been crazy with fear and denial at the time—still was, if he let himself think about it—but that didn't make him feel any better. He'd left Jules with Katie and seven months pregnant to go on the road with Sam, and he had to keep his head in the game, his mind on why they were here. Why they were doing this. His marriage wasn't the only thing at stake. If he let himself lose his head over this thing between him and Sam, the price could be Sam's life.

At last he let out a long, shaky breath, kicked his heel against the pavement and headed across the parking lot.

He found Sam stretched out on one of the beds, surfing on the computer. The TV was on low, one of the procedurals that Sam watched because he liked to criticize the forensics. He looked up when Dean came in.

"Hey. Everything okay?"

"Yeah. She said to say hi."

Sam's eyes took in the stiff way Dean was moving, saw through him in every way that counted. He looked like he was itching to say something.

"What?" Dean crossed to the other bed, sitting down to unlace his boots.

"Nothing." Sam looked back at his computer.

Dean bowed his head, feeling the muscles of his neck pull in protest. For a second, he'd thought Sam was going to get up. He'd thought maybe Sam was gonna push things between them, maybe come over and put his hands on him. And Dean wanted him to. He couldn't blame that on being in shock, on extenuating circumstances.

Sam had started it, that night in the woods over a year ago, but it had been Dean who'd pushed the issue, Dean who'd dragged them irrevocably over the line. Now he knew what it was like, being with Sam, and if he let himself think about it, it could take him down at the knees.

He made himself go put on sweats and brush his teeth and get in the bed closest to the door. Sam never looked at him, but Dean could feel how aware of him Sam was, a physical pressure on his skin. Dean was half-hard and knew all it would take to push him the rest of the way was for Sam to touch him, or say his name.

He forced himself to calm the fuck down, and eventually fell into an uneasy sleep under the rattle of the air conditioner and the soft, flickering light of the TV.

* * *

Sam dragged himself out of bed at oh-dark-thirty to find his brother's bed was empty. A few minutes later, Dean came in with motel coffee. They hit the road not long after first light, and were in Kansas City by ten.

Amber St. John's house was a sprawling, brick number that sat back from a wide, quiet street. They parked by the curb under a shade tree, and checked out the scene.

"You said she had two kids?" Dean asked, eyes on the swing set around the side of the house. In the distance, they could hear kids laughing. It was summer break, and they were home from school, but the St. John house was quiet.

"Twin boys. Eight years old. Her husband's name is James."

Dean nodded. He chewed on the inside of his lip for a second. Sam thought about offering again to go in without him, but before he could say anything, Dean swung his door open. "Okay, let's do this."

It took two tries with the doorbell before they heard footsteps and the turning of the deadbolt. Sam adjusted his tie and shook his hair back, reminding himself to keep his shoulders relaxed, his posture open. In situations like this, what you said didn't matter all that much. What mattered was body language, tone of voice, and eye contact.

"Mr. St. John?" he asked, when the door swung open. "Sam Rivers, with American Mutual. We spoke on the phone earlier?"

St. John rested a hand on the doorframe like he had no intention of letting them past it. "And I told you on the phone, we went over everything months ago. What's this about?"

He might've been a good-looking guy before grief had taken its toll on him. Now he looked older than his years, and wore anger like a suit of armor. Sam could feel the tension in Dean's body. He angled himself slightly to stand between St. John and his brother, as if he could shelter Dean from the psychic pain and bitter rage the guy was shedding like static electricity. It was a look they both knew too well.

That thought made Sam hesitate. He met the guy's sharp, suspicious gaze, and in the space of seconds, made a decision. "Okay, listen. The truth is, I don't work for the insurance company. My name's Sam Winchester. This is my brother, Dean." He felt more than heard the slight shift of Dean's reaction, but he didn't have time to overthink it. The man's eyes, the familiar way he held his back straight as iron—like if he let himself bend, he'd break—stopped the lies on Sam's lips before he could tell them. "I know it's a lot to ask, but we have a few questions about your wife's case, and we're hoping you might have a few minutes to talk to us."

St. John's expression had sharpened, but otherwise he didn't react. "What do you want?"

"We don't want anything, Mr. St. John, except what you want. To find out the truth about what happened to Amber." Sam held St. John's eyes with as much sincerity as he had in him. "We're not reporters. We're not with the hospital. We're just trying to figure out what went wrong." He glanced toward the bikes leaning up against the garage. "Is there someplace we can talk?"

Still St. John hesitated. "Sir, we wouldn't ask if it wasn't important," Dean said.

The way he said it must have convinced the guy, because after a long moment, he took a step back.

"The boys are at day camp. Come in."

The house looked like it had been a while since anyone had made more than a half-hearted pass at housekeeping. A pile of mail spilled across the hall table, and a thick coating of dust lay on most of the furniture.

"We really appreciate you making time for us," Sam said, as St. John led them into the living room. They shifted game controllers to sit opposite him on the couch. Sam sent up a small prayer of thanks that the twins weren't home. He didn't want to see the look on Dean's face, confronted with two little boys who had lost their mom.

"Looks like you caught me on a good day," St. John said. He glanced between them, his gray eyes intent. "It's been months since my wife died. You're the first people I've talked to who've said anything about finding out the truth. So what's this about?"

Sam drew a deep breath. "Listen, this is going to sound weird, but before she passed away, by any chance did Amber have—" He exchanged a look with Dean. "Had she ever shown evidence of psychic abilities?"

St. John stared at them. He sat back, his lips giving an unsteady quaver before he controlled his expression. "Why would you ask me that?"

"I know this isn't easy to talk about. Just bear with me for a minute. There've been others like Amber. They died the same way that she did. We're trying to find out what went wrong so it doesn't happen to anyone else."

St. John's face closed up tight. "You guys are some kind of _World Weekly News_ nuts, aren't you."

"Mr. St. John," Dean broke in. "People are dying. My brother here's one of them. And if we don't find out what happened to Amber, we think the same thing is gonna happen to him. So, please. If you know something."

St. John looked back and forth between them. "You're serious."

"As a heart attack," Dean told him.

After a moment, St. John relaxed back into his chair and stared into space, gathering his thoughts. He passed a hand over his mouth, as if not trusting what might come out of it.

Sam's eyes flickered to Dean's again. "Look, believe me, we know how this sounds. But I think maybe you know that there was more to Amber's death than meets the eye."

St. John finally spoke. "She was always really intuitive, you know? Always seemed to empathize with people. She was a therapist. Her clients loved her. But about six months before she died, Amber started..." He glanced up, meeting Sam's eyes. "She could read people's thoughts."

Sam nodded. Dean said, "How about warning signs? Was she sick? Did she talk about any symptoms? Headaches, dizzy spells, weird dreams, anything like that?"

"She always had headaches. More than most people, anyway. But no. There wasn't any warning. It happened at work—she collapsed in the bathroom. By the time her receptionist found her, she was already gone." He said it evenly, but then emotion overcame him, his face betraying him as he fought to keep from giving in to it. His fingers closed over his wedding ring, holding it close. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't be like this after all this time, but it's just, we were really close. She was my childhood sweetheart."

"I understand. I'm so sorry to bring all this up," Sam said. He waited while St. John got himself together, all too conscious of Dean tense beside him. "We appreciate your help."

"You really think there could be a connection between her—abilities—and what happened to her?"

 _I went to Missouri, and I learned the truth,_ Sam thought. Aloud, he said, "Honestly, we don't know for sure. But we think so." He hesitated. "Mr. St. John, I hate to ask this, but did you happen to have an autopsy done?"

"Yeah. I did. I wanted to know what went wrong. But it didn't tell us much."

"Forgive me for asking, but is there any chance we could get a copy of it?"

While he went into his office and printed a copy, they waited, not saying anything; Sam studied Dean sidelong, trying not to be too obvious about it, but Dean had himself under tight control and wouldn't look at him.

When St. John returned, Sam took the manila folder with a nod of thanks. Dean leaned forward. "One last question. Have you seen anything else weird? Lights flickering, really weird storms or tornadoes, maybe localized around here? Sulfur?" Sam suppressed his reaction, though it wasn't easy.

St. John frowned. "Sulfur? What the hell does that have to do anything?"

"Probably nothing," Sam said. "Please, just—answer the question?"

"No. Nothing like that. Why would you ask that?"

"It was a long shot," Sam said. "Forget we said anything."

Dean said, "Is there anything else you can tell us, Mr. St. John? Anything else weird you can think of? Doesn't matter how insignificant. Anything you can tell us might help."

"I'm afraid not. That's the thing, you know? It was like it came out of nowhere. Like something just reached out and—ended her life. Just like that."

Sam nodded in understanding. He stood up, and Dean rose with him. "Thank you for your time, Mr. St. John. We're very sorry about Amber."

"Wait a minute," St. John protested. "That's it?"

Dean said, "For now. But I promise you, if we find out anything, we'll tell you." He shook St. John's hand; Sam did the same, and thanked him again.

"You find out anything, you call me," St. John said, and Sam hoped like hell that they hadn't made a mistake they'd regret for a long time to come.

* * *

Sam shut the car door with more force than necessary and gave Dean a hard look. "Sulfur?"

"Hey. You been thinkin' it, too."

"We haven't seen the first sign of demon activity in five years."

"Yeah, well. Don't mean they're not out there. I'm just covering all the bases."

Sam wasn't happy about it, but he couldn't argue. He had been thinking it. Azazel was dead. Lilith was dead. He could still taste Ruby's blood thick in his throat if he let himself. But Lucifer was still kicking. Maybe somebody else down there was making a play.

"Dean, what did we just do in there?"

Dean grimaced. "Askin' myself the same thing."

"You know I would've told you, right? If I'd seen anything that made me think demons were involved in this."

Dean arched one eyebrow. "Would you? You sure?"

Sam's temper rose—not at storm warning levels, yet, but getting there. " _Yes,_ I'm sure. What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothin'. Just that it wouldn't be the first time you kept things to yourself that you thought I wouldn't want to hear."

"Well, I learned from the best."

Sam knew he was treading dangerously. But Dean controlled his own temper with a visible effort. "Okay, new pact. No more keeping shit from each other. You see something, you think you know something, you tell me."

"Sure. Long as you do the same."

Dean paused. "That's fair, I guess."

"Don't sound so enthusiastic, there, Dean." But Sam didn't put much fire behind it. He knew Dean's edginess wasn't really directed at him. Dean was upset, and when he got upset, he got pissed off. It had been hard for him, being in that house. By confirming James St. John's suspicions about his wife's death, they might have created a monster—and two little boys might pay the price. Worse, it had reminded him of why they were here.

Dean started the car and pulled away from the curb. They'd gone a block or so before Sam said, "If it is starting up again, there'll be signs."

The sun was streaming in the window, and Sam saw the flush spread up Dean's neck. He didn't look at Sam when he said, "I already told Bobby to keep an eye out."

Sam hoped Dean could feel the force of his glare.

He opened the autopsy file to distract himself from things better left unsaid. It was clear and to the point. The medical examiner's notes showed that the aneurysm that had killed Amber St. John was so catastrophic, it was doubtful anyone could have stopped the bleeding in time. Cause of death was an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage—unusual in someone so young, a nonsmoker with no history of drug or alcohol abuse or high blood pressure, and no evidence of infection. From the sound of things, the rupture had killed Amber within a minute.

Dean listened while Sam reported the significant facts as they headed out of town, aware that Sam was likely leaving out the gory details. When he was finished, Sam concluded, "The good news is, sounds a lot more like natural causes than demons."

Dean's jaw set. None of this was what he wanted to hear. Demons, he could fight. But he had no weapon that would stop Sam's brain from self-destructing.

"What?"

"Nothin'. Just wish we knew what we were dealing with."

He felt Sam's eyes on him, and forced himself to relax. It had never been easy for him, accepting Sam's psychic abilities, and he'd never exactly made a secret of it. But he had to suck it up and deal, if he expected Sam to be straight with him about it. That lesson, he'd learned; for as much as Sam cared what people thought of him, it was Dean's opinion that had the power to break him. The bad guys had always known that, too.

_Listen to me, you bloodsucking freak. I'm done trying to save you._

"We'll figure this out," Sam said as they hit the highway and started putting miles under the tires.

"Yeah, I know we will." And on the heels of that came a troubling question. "So, mind-reading," he said.

An uncomfortable pause followed. "You really want to know?"

Dean looked at him. It was an unnerving thought. But Sam knew all his ugly secrets, always had. And if there was anybody he trusted with the messed up crap that went on in his head, it was Sam.

After a long moment, he pointed a finger at his brother. "AC/DC," he ordered. "And we never talk about this again."


	2. Chapter 2

They got in to San Antonio after one a.m., at the tail end of a thirteen hour drive in ninety-five degree humidity, and pulled in to the first motel that advertised air conditioning on their vacancy sign.

"You hungry?" Sam asked, as Dean let them in to the room. "Think I saw a Denny's on the way in." A blast of cold air hit them in the face, and Dean breathed a silent thanks to the state-wide Texan policy against leaving an ounce of fossil fuel unwasted.

He shook his head and dropped his bag at the foot of his bed, letting himself fall face-first onto it. He turned over and flung his arms out, closing his eyes in relief as the sweat started to evaporate. "Too hot and tired to think about food." Sam made a disbelieving noise, and Dean could practically hear his eyebrows hit his hairline. "Yeah, yeah. It's hell to get old."

"You're thirty-four, Dean."

Dean cracked one eye open. "Shut up and get me a soda, bitch."

Sam made a face, but grabbed the ice bucket and left the room. He took his time, letting Dean have his privacy to call Jules.

She'd been asleep, and they didn't stay on long. She assured him everything was fine, and Dean promised to call her as soon as he had any news. He hung up as Sam came back.

Sam tossed a cold can his way, then cracked open his own and bent to fiddle with the A/C. Dean read the low-level tension in the set of his shoulders, same as it had been all day.

Dean sipped at his Coke, trying to read Sam's profile. "Everything okay?"

"Quit asking me that. I'm fine."

Dean frowned. Sam had been quiet since Kansas City, but Dean's clumsy attempts to find out what was going on with him had only served to irritate him. Dean hadn't caught him pinching the bridge of his nose like he did when he had one of his oncoming vision headaches, but that could mean he'd gotten better at faking it.

Sam finally quit messing with the controls and straightened up. Dean watched him stretch the kinks out of his back, then disappear into the bathroom. Water ran in the sink. When he came out, his face and the tips of his hair wet, Dean caught his eye before he could avoid it.

"Sam, come on, man. Talk to me."

Sam's color rose. Dean watched the inner debate war in his expression; finally he came over and sat on the opposite bed. Dean braced his elbows on his knees and waited.

Sam looked at his hands. "You gotta tell me what I'm supposed to do, here, Dean."

Dean huffed out a breath in an uneasy laugh. "You say that like I know."

"I mean it, all right? If you want to forget it ever happened—"

"What? No. That's not it."

"Then what? Because I'm kind of going crazy over here."

Dean grimaced, but powered through because it had to be said. "I told you. You tell me what you need me to do, and I’ll do it."

Sam's face twitched. "And until then?"

Under the gun, Dean latched on to the first thing he could think of. "First things first. We're on a mission to keep you breathing. Remember what Dad used to say? No screwing around on a hunt. Especially not when you don't know what you're hunting." It was an excuse, and he knew that, but it was also the truth. When Sam didn't immediately call him on it, he said, "Look, man. You and me—it's messing with my head worse than anything I've ever done, and if there's one hunt I don't want to screw up, it's this one."

That part, at least, was one hundred percent true.

Sam didn't look any more sure than Dean felt, but he didn't look pissed, either. He looked like he was considering it. At last, he nodded. "Okay," he said.

Dean blinked. "Okay? That's it?"

Sam let out a shaky breath. "Yeah. I mean, I get that none of this is easy. But you're right." Sam looked at him then, painfully honest. "Just so you know, it's not easy for me, either."

Dean's insides knotted up. His voice came hoarse when he said, "I know, Sammy."

Sam swallowed. His face was flushed, and Dean had to make a Herculean effort to keep from looking to see if Sam's body was reacting to them talking about this. At the thought, his own dick pressed uncomfortably at his jeans, and his heart thudded in his chest, the rhythm of his blood pulsing heavy in his ears.

"I'm gonna—" Sam stood up. He looked lost for a second before he grabbed his bag and disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later, the shower came on.

Dean stared after him, his mouth dry, his throat aching worse than if he'd swallowed a rock. He felt shaky, like they'd just had a close call—like he'd swerved at the last second and managed to avoid a giant black hole in the road. Or maybe Sam had.

Sam was the one who'd tried to give him an out. _You're my brother, and that's more than enough._ Maybe it would even work. Maybe they could go back to the way it had been, if they tried hard enough. The heavy, tingling sensation in his belly said otherwise, but if they both held out long enough, maybe it would fade into an aberration they could put in a box with every other fucked up thing that had ever happened to them.

Dean tried to make himself believe it. Tried to make himself believe he'd imagined the way Sam had looked the first time he'd kissed Dean that night in the woods. The way it'd felt having Sam inside him, and all the times he'd thought about it since. That if they could just get past this, if Sam was safe, Dean would stop feeling like he was going out of his mind trying to get his head around it.

Dean rubbed at his eyes. He'd loved the hell out of Sam all his life, but he didn't know what to do with this constant ache. Having time to think about it wasn't helping.

By the time Sam emerged, Dean was under the covers with his back facing the bathroom door, but he didn't sleep for a long time. He would've laid money that he wasn't the only one.

* * *

  


"Morning, sunshine. Gonna sleep all day?"

Dean felt something soft hit the back of his head. He groaned into the pillow, then turned and rubbed a hand over his face.

"You been waiting your whole life to say that," he accused, closing a fist over the thing Sam had thrown at him. As suspected, Sam's balled-up, dirty socks. Dean scowled and threw them back, hoping he'd get lucky and hit Sam in the face.

"Man's gotta make his own fun where he can," Sam said. "At least I brought coffee." He set it down on the nightstand two feet from Dean's nose, and the aroma sent a wave of anticipation through Dean's body.

"Taught you one thing, at least." He pushed himself up on one elbow and drank, closing his eyes and silently forgiving his brother for the ripe socks and a host of other sins. "Time is it?"

"Time to get a move on, if we're gonna make it out there by eleven." Sam tossed a wrapped-up breakfast burrito at him; it landed square between his shoulder blades, and Dean shot him a glare, reaching around to grab it. He sat up. Sam was already shaved, dressed, and packed, he noted with annoyance.

"What the hell are you so cheerful about, anyway? Thought this whole shaman thing was a big waste of time to you."

"I never said that."

"Didn't have to."

Sam sat down facing him. "Dean, I'm not saying that. It's worth a shot. Like you said, we gotta figure out what we're dealing with." He did the wide, clear-eyed sincere face with it, and almost sold it. Dean scowled.

"Nice try. Keep working on it, sooner or later you'll convince someone." Sam opened his mouth, but Dean waved away whatever he was going to say and got up. "Leave it, okay? I don't wanna hear it." The last thing he needed was to be reminded of how long his long shots were. He had to believe one of these priests or psychics or gypsy fortune tellers would pan out. The alternative was to descend into blind, soul-killing panic, and he'd done enough of that already. Look where it had gotten them.

He was mostly over his bitchy mood by the time they pulled up in front of the house and went through the iron gate. A small cluster of adobe structures, stone walkways, wooden boardwalks, gardens, fences, and metal sculptures made up the shaman's residence, studio, and who knew what else. Somewhere, Dean could hear chickens. He breathed deep without planning to, and got sage, sunbaked rock, and the deep green smells of vegetables growing.

Instead of an electric doorbell, Mira Ramirez had an actual bell attached to a string. Sam glanced at Dean, who gave a shrug. Before either of them could pull it, they heard dog nails on tile and a soft _whuf_ from inside. A moment later, the door opened.

"Ms. Ramirez?" Dean asked, though this had to be her. She had the sharp, piercing eyes he'd come to expect from those who practiced spirit medicine, and the sun-weathered skin that went with them. From the creases around her eyes and the sharp lines by her mouth, she might have been sixty, or eighty. Then she opened the screen door, and he realized that regardless of her age, she could probably kick his ass. Even if she hadn't been flanked by two sleek, well-trained Dobermans, she was built like Linda Hamilton and carried herself like she knew about fifteen martial arts.

"Mira," she said, gesturing them inside. "Ramirez was my husband's name."

As if her welcome was a signal, the two dogs pushed past her and Dean put out a hand for them to sniff, trying not to give off negative vibes. Wet noses checked him out with solemn concentration. He seemed to pass muster; they moved from him to Sam, giving him a more thorough examination before slipping back through the door at Mira's wordless dismissal, disappearing into the house like solemn shadows.

The Winchesters stepped into the cool darkness of the entryway. The sound of water on tile enveloped them, and it felt like the temperature dropped about twenty degrees, though Dean saw no sign of air conditioning. "Thank you for seeing us," he said, trying to decide if she was Native American, Slavic, or both. Her accent was nothing he could identify. "I'm Dean. This is Sam." But her eyes were already intent on his brother.

"You've come a long way," she said. After a moment, she turned and led them down the short hall. It opened into a room full of filtered sunlight with a woven mat on the floor, a fountain on the wall, a low sofa and a chair facing it. "Soon you will journey further. But first, sit."

Dean liked the no-bullshit manner she had, her rolled-up cargo pants, white T-shirt, and brown, bare feet. She wore no jewelry save plain silver hoops in her ears and a silver ring on one toe. Her silver-white hair was cropped short, like she couldn't be bothered to deal with it.

They did as they were told, and she poured them each cold water from a pitcher. It tasted better than any water Dean could remember. She sat on the arm of the chair opposite and studied them. "You fasted this morning?" she asked Sam.

"Yes ma'am."

"Several days of fasting is better." She leaned forward and studied Sam for a moment. Her brows drew sharply downward. "But I can see that you are no stranger to the space between worlds. You have walked as a spirit yourself, more than once."

"Yes ma'am."

It was an understatement to say Dean didn't like thinking about the two days Sam had lain dead on a cot in front of him, but he liked even less the idea that this woman could smell it on him six years after the fact. On the other hand, if it meant they could skip to the second act, he was all for it.

"The most important thing you must remember," Mira said, "is that when you make a dream journey, you are asking a question. Be specific. Your spirit guide will take you to find the answer, so you must be clear about what you want to learn."

Then she planted her feet flat on the floor and leaned forward. "I'm going to read your auras now," she said. "I want you both to take a deep breath and try to relax. Sam, this may feel strange to you. There are strong forces within you that you have locked away—out of sight, out of mind. That part of you may perceive what I'm going to do as a threat. It isn't. I want you to leave yourself open to me, do you understand?"

Dean went from cautious and a little skeptical to raised hackles and warning bells in about three seconds. Beside him, he could feel Sam tense up, too.

"Wait a minute," Dean said. "What exactly are you going to do?"

"It's a precaution. For those who have crossed over and returned, it can be dangerous to walk in the twilight." She glanced between them. "Am I speaking Russian?"

Sam coughed. "No, sorry, it's just—"

"Right. Dreamwalking, auras, spirit animals, you didn't expect much. I understand. Most people think it's ridiculous to believe in ghosts, too."

They both smiled uneasily. Dean exchanged a quick glance with Sam. "Ellen did say you were the best," he said aloud. _You cool with this?_ he asked Sam with a look. Sam shrugged.

She waited for them both to nod and ready themselves. Then she opened her weathered hands and took a deep breath.

Beside Dean, Sam held perfectly still. He didn't tense, or make a sound, but Dean was tense enough for both of them. He could feel the sudden power in the room, electric current on his skin that made him think he'd been blind not to sense it before. Was that her, or Sam? And what the hell had made him think any of this was a good idea?

He made an effort to calm himself when it was his turn. He didn't feel anything in particular, just self-conscious, with her hands tracing his outline and Sam's eyes on him. Then she gave a grunt that sounded like disapproval, and lowered her hands.

"What?" he demanded.

"Your aura is in chaos. But you are bound to one another. He will not easily journey without you, and he will need you to ground him so that he can return." She regarded them for a moment, then made a tsking noise like there was no help for it. She stood. "Come."

"What the hell did she mean, my aura's in chaos?" Dean muttered under his breath. "There's nothing wrong with my aura." Sam shot him a quelling look.

She led them out across a patio to a small building with doors on either end. "You must purify yourselves as much as possible—both the body, and the mind." She opened one door to reveal a vestibule and a small, cedar-lined steam sauna. "The heat will remove toxins from your body that can interfere with the spirit-journey you wish to make. Remove everything. When I come for you, wear the clothing I leave outside the door."

For a second, Dean worried that she meant them to get naked in there together. He stole a glance at Sam, heat flushing through him at the thought. But Mira directed Sam to the other door, and Dean breathed easier.

As small spaces went, it could have been worse. There was a skylight, for one thing. Dean felt a little weird at first, naked in a closet in the middle of this woman's garden, but after a few minutes of fidgeting, the steam and the smell of the purifying herbs relaxed him.

Sam was somewhere close, just on the other side of the wall. Dean closed his eyes, breathing in the fragrant steam, and wondered what the hell she was talking about when she said they were bound to each other. He tried to feel Sam, to get some sense of what he was doing, or thinking about. But he was no more psychic than he'd ever been, and if the goal of this exercise was purity of the mind, thinking about Sam while he was naked and relaxed, no more than ten feet between them, was probably a bad idea.

* * *

  


When the rap came at the door, Dean dressed hurriedly. Mira waited outside with Sam. Dean tried to get a read on his brother, but Sam turned to follow the shaman before Dean could ask him if he was ready for this.

She brought them into a room with low benches covered in blankets. Drapes covered the windows, and candles provided the only light. The studio must have been air conditioned and well-ventilated, because it was cool, and the smell of incense wasn't cloying.

She motioned for them to sit down. A set of drums hung on the wall; Dean watched as she went and took two of them down. He was startled when she put one into his hands. It was one of the most beautifully crafted things Dean had ever touched in his life, and he couldn't help running his fingers over it.

To Sam, she said, "You should envision a place where you feel at home, at peace. When you enter the trance, you will go there. This is where your journey will begin."

She turned to Dean. "You will drum for us," she told him. "First, to quiet the mind and the spirit. Then, for the trance."

"I've never done this before," he protested.

"Follow the rhythm," she said. "Feel the drum's heartbeat. Let go of your fear, and be in the here and now." She sat down across from Sam, and after a moment, began to drum. Hesitantly, Dean followed her lead. He gained confidence as the rhythm seemed to gather him up and carry him with it beyond his conscious will. She looked at Sam.

Sam glanced at Dean, then drew a deep breath and nodded.

"Breathe in through the nose," she said, "and out again the same way. Connect with the earth. Feel it beneath you, supporting you."

Dean sank deeper into the rhythm of the drum as she guided Sam through more breathing exercises: water, air, fire, and something she called ether. At first, Dean stayed focused on Sam, watching him, but his feelings were too intense and did nothing to quiet his mind. He made himself focus on the candle flame and the drumming instead, on the hypnotic sound of her voice. He started doing the breathing exercises, too.

She told Sam to imagine a mist rising to envelop him. She said that when it cleared, he would find himself in the spirit world, and his guide would come to help him.

Dean lost track of time. At last his head fell quiet, and all he saw was the candle flame. All he heard was the drum. He looked across the flames at Sam and saw a raven on Sam's shoulder. The raven was enormous, the size of a big owl, and it was looking at him. The thought came to him, clear as crystal, that he'd made a terrible mistake, bringing Sam here. But the rhythm of the drum held him fast, the fear that if he stopped, Sam might never find his way back.

He didn't stop. When he blinked, the bird winked a shiny black eye at him, and vanished.

* * *

  


  
[](http://seacouver.slashcity.net/bigbang/raven_sam.jpg)  
  


It might have been minutes, or hours; Dean couldn't tell. A framed painting smashed to the ground, and the clay incense burner shattered like a gunshot. Dean flinched and crashed back to awareness. At the same time, Mira stopped drumming abruptly and gasped, reeling. Dean went to her instinctively, but his eyes were on Sam, who snapped awake an instant later. The candlelight reflected in Sam's eyes and turned them yellow for a second. Dean's heart leapt into his throat. Then the candles blew out.

Dean cursed and leaned past Mira to yank back the curtain, letting filtered light in.

He crouched beside her without thinking, putting a hand on one shoulder to keep her from falling. "Hey. Hey!" He had eyes only for Sam, but Sam looked all right. His eyes were their normal color, and he was already on his feet, coming around to Mira's other side. She recoiled, then put a hand out and righted herself without leaning on either of them. "You guys all right?" Dean asked. Mira nodded. "Sammy?"

"I'm okay."

Mira's eyes slid to Sam, and Dean wished like hell he knew what to call the look on her face.

"What happened?" he demanded. "What was that?"

She shook her head, and pushed herself to her feet. "Meet me outside in a few minutes," she said, and left abruptly.

Dean turned to Sam. "You sure you're okay?"

"I think so, yeah."

Dean put a hand on his arm anyway, and they held on to each other for a second before Sam let Dean hustle him out of the room onto the patio outside. Mira had made herself scarce. Dean didn't let go of Sam's arm. He dragged Sam over to sit on a bench in the shade. Whatever had happened in there, Dean felt pretty sure it wasn't good.

"Talk to me," he ordered.

Sam passed a hand over his face. "Well, she was right, about the spirit animal."

"Yeah, let me guess. A raven?"

"How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess. So, what'd you see?"

Sam seemed to be looking for words to describe it; Mira reappeared from the house and beckoned them to come sit with her at a table nearby. She lit a hand-rolled cigarette, and Dean could see that her hands shook.

"I'm sorry about what happened in there," Sam said. "We'll pay for the damage." Dean opened his mouth; Sam shoved his knee into Dean's.

She shook her head. "It's not important. Tell me what you saw."

Sam took a deep breath. "I was on a road. A two lane road, between fields of corn. Iowa or someplace, I guess." He glanced at Dean. "I came across a raven sitting on a fence post. It looked right at me. It flew down and picked at a dead coyote in the middle of the road. Then it hopped down into the ditch, and went into a burrow. I remembered that you told me that it was supposed to show me where to go, so I followed it down under the ground." Mira nodded. "It came out into a clearing, where it was night. I couldn't see anything clearly." His eyes shifted to Dean again, and then he looked down. "Then, after a while, I saw these—yellow eyes, all around me. I was surrounded by them. But before I could be scared, I realized that they were wolves—a whole pack of wolves—and I was one of them.

"We ran through the woods as a pack, until I saw something in the trees. The wolves saw it, too, because they stopped at the edge of the forest. Then it was like they parted ways to let me through, you know? So, I went out into this field, and I realized it was someplace I'd been before. This old cowboy graveyard in Wyoming. There was a—a crypt, there, that I'd seen before." He took in another steadying breath, and checked Dean's reaction, but what expression was on his face, Dean didn't know. Sam colored, but he plunged ahead. "The gate, the crypt I mean, was standing open. I went toward it, and I saw there was a ladder. So, I climbed down it."

"Sam," Dean said.

But Mira stayed him with a shake of her head. "Ladders and tunnels—these symbolize pathways to the underworld. Not everyone can reach the other planes the first time, but that is where we must go to find the answers we seek." She looked at Sam. "Where did this passage take you?"

Sam hesitated. Dean knew from the quick look Sam slanted his direction that whatever he'd seen, he didn't want Dean to have to hear it. "Just tell her, Sammy," he said. "It's okay."

Sam looked at his hands for a long minute. "It was the panic room," he said at last, his voice hoarse with memory and shame. "A room in our friend's basement," he explained to Mira. "It's sealed against demons, and—and most other things, too. When I got there, I saw myself sitting on the floor in the middle of the room."

"Did this figure speak to you?" she demanded.

Sam swallowed. "He said he'd been waiting a long time. And he called me by name."

She nodded like it wasn't a surprise, but Dean didn't like what he saw in her eyes. "What does it mean?" Sam asked her.

She drew the sweet smoke of her cigarette into her lungs, then met Sam's gaze straight on, and spoke slowly, as if to make sure the meaning of each word was clear. "Each of us must interpret our own dream visions, and I suspect you are more intuitive than most. To meet a reflection oneself in the twilight world is unusual, but not unheard of. It may be a shade, deceiving you. Or, it may be that there is something hidden within yourself you must confront. It is difficult to say. This encounter caused you great distress—strong enough to break the trance." She stopped, and seemed to weigh her next words.

“A shadow lies over your spirit. It obscures my Sight,” she said at last. “I need to meditate, and consult my own spirit guides. Come back this afternoon.”

* * *

  


They changed into their own clothes and headed to the nearest town, subdued to the point of silence. It wasn't until they were sitting in a burger joint, food in front of them that neither of them wanted, that Sam broke it at last.

"Dean, there's something else I didn't tell her." He risked a glance at Dean, and when he saw Dean was listening, he let out a long, unsteady breath. "His eyes were yellow. My eyes, I mean. Like the demon's."

Dean nodded; he'd guessed it was something like that. The whole scene Sam had described had reminded him too vividly of his own nightmares when Ruby had told him he was going to Hell and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

"So what? Doesn't mean anything. I had those dreams all the time, back when. Just nightmares, that's all. Just your subconscious showing you something you're scared of."

"You don't think there's some way he could have come back? Azazel?"

"No, I don't. No way. That sonofabitch is dead, no question."

"It just seems weird that I'd see him in my vision, then. It's pretty specific, as far as clues go."

Dean shrugged, hoping it was convincing. "You sure it was him? I mean, maybe it's metaphorical."

"Yeah, maybe." Sam sounded dubious. "I guess so." But he looked troubled, and as much as Dean wanted to believe the whole thing was crap, he didn't feel good about blowing it off.

"Tell me something," he said. "What was your question? That you asked your spirit guide, or whatever."

Sam met his eyes. His expression said he wasn't sure Dean wanted to know, and that was probably true. But if they were giving this thing any weight, he needed to.

"I asked what killed them," Sam said, his voice low and full of the shame and guilt that had come out when he talked about the panic room. Dean half expected it, but that didn't make it any easier to hear. He wished like hell he and Bobby hadn't had to do what they'd done back then, but they'd had no choice. It had been for Sam's own good as much as anything. Sam knew that, or at least Dean hoped he did.

They were gonna have to talk about this, that much was obvious. He just wished he thought talking about it would ever make it sit easier with Sam.

"You gonna eat your fries?" he asked at last, though his stomach was tied in a knot and he didn't think he could choke them down if his life depended on it.

Sam pushed his plate across the table, and Dean tried to push his uneasiness out of his head.

* * *

  


When they got back that afternoon. Mira looked worse. She looked like she'd aged ten years. Her dogs hovered close, protective; they laid their ears back at the Winchesters. If Dean hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it possible for the woman they'd met that morning to look so frail.

"Mira, what happened?" Sam asked. Dean could tell Sam wanted to comfort her with a touch, to offer support, but he didn't, though whether because of the dogs or some other reason, Dean didn't know.

She looked shaken. "A shaman can seek the help of spirits on a dream journey. I sought the others. The spirits of the ones who died." The other psychics, Dean realized she meant. "But I couldn't find them. They did not answer me. It was as if they never existed. As if they had been erased."

Dean frowned. "Erased? What the hell does that mean?"

"Dean."

"Sorry. No disrespect intended."

But Mira said only, "If I knew what it meant, I would tell you."

"So, what now?" Dean said.

She exchanged a look with Sam. "I must meditate and cleanse my own spirit before I will be able to journey again." Sam nodded, his face pinched in that look he got when he thought everything was his fault. "You must listen," she said, and her voice was starting to fail. "It's not safe for you to walk alone in the spirit realm. The twilight has a strong hold on you, and if you leave your physical body, you may not be able to find your way back without someone to anchor you." She looked meaningfully at Dean.

"I understand," Sam said. "Thank you. We appreciate it."

Dean looked at him sharply. "Wait a minute. That’s it?"

"Come on, let's go." Sam locked on to Dean's arm, pulling him toward the door with a grip like iron. "We're sorry for all the trouble, Mira. Thanks for your help."

Dean exploded quietly the minute they got outside. "Thanks for your help? What the hell was that? We drove seventeen hundred miles to get here. You're just gonna give up?"

"Dean." Sam's face set in that immovable object look Dean hated. "You saw how much it took out of her. I'm not going to push her any harder, not when we don't know what it might do to her."

Dean had to walk away for a second. Sam was so matter-of-fact about everything, like one dream-vision or whatever and he was willing to believe this was his fault, that he was poison, that there was something inside him so terrible, he deserved to die. After all this time, Dean thought, after everything they'd been through. He kicked himself for not getting it sooner.

"Dude, come on," Sam said. "What are you so pissed at me for? You know I'm right."

Dean turned on him. For a handful of seconds, he didn't know where to begin. Finally, he settled on, "You got a ticking time bomb in your head, and I swear, it's like you're going through the motions. Or worse, like you think you got it coming. Do you even care?"

"Of course I do."

"Yeah, well, you're sure not acting like it."

Sam's eyebrows rose, and he spread his hands. "I'm here, aren't I? You think I want to die?"

Dean stared at him. "I don't know. You tell me. Because from where I'm standing, it's hard to tell."

* * *

  


Sam watched Dean turn on a heel and stalk toward the car. He blew out a breath and took a minute to calm himself down, then followed.

Dean was already behind the wheel by the time he got there. Sam got in the other side, keeping a tight rein on his temper. He could feel the tension coming off Dean in waves, and this was one of those times where if they both got upset, they were going to say things they'd regret.

He had to get Dean to think about this rationally. As calmly and reasonably as he knew how, he said, "Dean, you heard what she said."

"Yeah, I heard. Sounded like a whole lotta nothin' to me."

"She said it was like they were _erased._ Like they never existed."

"So?"

"We both know it wasn't supposed to happen this way. None of this was. The road we were on, the way things were headed—if the Trickster hadn't clued us in, who knows what would have happened?" Dean turned and stared at him. "Look, I'm just saying, maybe there's a price for that. Maybe this is how it has to be, and if that's the case, it's worth it."

"Oh, yeah? How do you figure?"

Sam reached up and pulled down the visor of the Impala. Dean had a picture of Katie clipped there, chasing bubbles on the grass at the park. Unwillingly, Dean looked at it.

Sam's phone chose that moment to ring. Sam let out a breath and checked the caller ID. "It's Ellen," he said.

"This isn't over," Dean warned.

* * *

  


She'd called looking for an update. Sam told her they didn't know much more than they had before. He promised to keep her posted. The whole conversation lasted less than a minute, but by the time he hung up, Dean had subsided into sullen silence.

The drive back to the motel felt like it took hours, though it was less than forty miles. Sam kept his thoughts to himself, knowing none of it was anything Dean would want to hear right now. He could feel the anger draining out of his brother with every mile that passed, could feel depression settling in its wake. Keeping Dean pissed at him might be easier on Dean in the long run, but Sam didn't have it in him. Not when he didn't know how much time they had left.

 _A shadow lies over your spirit_ , Mira had said. Sam wished it hadn't felt so true. But her words resonated in a place deep within him, where he'd known all his life that there was something wrong with him—a seed of darkness fed to him when he was six months old that he could never truly escape.

In the parking lot, Dean shut off the car and sat with his hands on the wheel at ten and two, staring at the gauges without seeing them.

"Dean—" Sam began.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn'ta gone off on you like that. But I don't ever want to hear you talking crap about how it's _worth_ it. You hear me?"

There was nothing Sam could say to that. He couldn't apologize for it, not when he'd meant it. But he knew this was hard on Dean, and did the best he could. He said, "I hear you." Then he added, "Not our best day," and made it a peace offering.

Dean bit out a soft, bitter laugh, still not looking at him. "You can say that again."

"But listen, just because the first thing we try doesn't work, doesn't mean I'm giving up."

Dean nodded. "Glad to hear it," he said after a minute.

Sam swallowed. His stomach felt tight, but he had to do something. He couldn't stand the look on Dean's face right now. "Hey, think we could stay in tonight?"

Finally, Dean looked at him. Sam felt it down to his center; he couldn't help the way his heart sped up. From the looks of things, he wasn't the only one.

Dean cleared his throat. "Sounds good," he said at last. "Order us a pizza and I'll go pick us up some beer."

Grateful for the reprieve, Sam did as he was told.

* * *

  


What pissed Dean off about the whole thing was that he was scared Sam might be right.

Alone in the car at the gas station, he thought about what he knew, about how the Apocalypse was supposed to go down. He'd sold his soul for Sam's life, just like the demons wanted. At the end of that year, Dean had been meant to go to Hell and start the whole thing. Would have, if the Trickster hadn't given them a book that didn't exist.

_And the first seal shall be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell—_

Dean leaned across the seat and pulled the dog-eared copy of _Lucifer Rising_ out of the glove compartment. It was the only one in existence. They'd talked about trying to find the author, but Sam had spent six days in Bobby's panic room after killing Ruby and Lilith, and by the time they recovered and got back on the road, Carver Edlund had disappeared, leaving no forwarding address.

They'd talked about burning it, too, like that could somehow prevent anything in it from coming true. But five years later, it was still here.

A quick check on his phone showed that the Supernatural series was still out of print. _Mystery Spot_ was the last one ever released; the publisher had gone out of business not long after. As far as the rest of the world knew, the book he held in his hand had never been published.

Dean thumbed through it. The pages fell open to the part where Sam listened to that damned voicemail, the one he'd believed was from Dean. Like always, reading the hateful words, and Sam's reaction, made his stomach hurt like somebody'd kicked him. It had never happened, but it could have. Even now, five years later, he still found it hard to imagine a reality in which Sam would make lying to Dean a way of life and fuck a demon behind his back. That it could fuck them up to the point where Sam believed Dean would ever in his right mind threaten to kill him and mean it.

He put the book away and went inside. Sam was right about one thing: it had been a shit day, and he could really use a drink.

* * *

  


They sat on Dean's bed, the pizza box open between them and a growing collection of beer bottles on the night stand.

"Listen, I been thinking," Dean said. "Maybe this is still part of his setup." At Sam's look, he clarified, "Azazel. Maybe he set this up for a reason. I mean, he said he only needed one of you. Maybe this is some kind of, I don't know, like a fail-safe."

"What, you mean like some kind of psychic sell-by date?" Dean hadn't said aloud what Sam knew he was hoping: that if that was true, then maybe Sam would be the exception.

Sam wasn't happy about the idea. He didn't want to think about the possibility that eleven more people might have died because of him. He wouldn't soon forget the demon telling him _You're my favorite,_ like it was some kind of reward for good behavior. He couldn't blame Dean for holding onto the chance, though. If their positions were reversed, he'd be selfish, too. "So, you think that's why I saw him in my vision?"

"Could be." Dean took a big bite of pepperoni and cheese and chewed thoughtfully. "What I don't get is why."

"Why what?"

"Why all the psychic cage match crap. You'd think an army of psychics would be better than one really pissed off dude."

"Pretty sure pissing me off was part of his plan."

"Yeah, but if you got a whole deck of cards, why lay all your chips down on one hand? Doesn't make sense."

Sam's face twitched. "What's your point?"

"Just saying, if it is something that son of a bitch did to you, then there's a way to undo it. We just gotta find it is all."

* * *

  


Some time later, they'd put the pizza away and nearly wiped out the beer supply. Sam hadn't moved to his own bed, and Dean's awareness of that fact was far too acute for his peace of mind, but Sam's knee rested warm against his, and Dean was buzzed and too comfortable to want to move.

He should. He knew that. This, what they were doing, was asking for trouble.

"Dean, I've been thinking, too," Sam said at last.

"We're doomed."

"Seriously. The others. There's only three left. They deserve to know."

Dean scowled. "What good will that do?"

"At least they'd have time to say goodbye."

"You really think that makes it any better?"

"No, I know it doesn't, but—"

"But nothing."

"Dean."

Dean twisted to look at him. "That last year, after I made the deal, you think I woulda told you? If I'd had my way, you never woulda known. Neither would Bobby. You were never supposed to know."

"Yeah, and by the way, I'm still pissed at you for that."

Dean made a gesture that encompassed them, the room, the hunt. "And I seem to remember I had to figure all this out for myself, so don't act like you got a leg to stand on."

"That's different. I was gonna tell you."

Dean didn't want to fight, not tonight. The day had been bad enough as it was. "Yeah, well. I'm just sayin', ignorance is bliss, at least until we have something to tell them. Trust me, it's better to burn out than fade away."

Sam laughed in spite of himself, shaking the bed. "Did you just quote Neil Young?"

"Man could write the hell out of a song, you can't deny it."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

Dean's eyes strayed to Sam's profile, half-hidden by his hair. It was the longest they'd spent in each other's personal space since that day at Sam's. They never did this, he thought. Talked about shit like this without tearing into each other. It felt dangerous, like if they could manage this much, anything was possible.

They were too close. Dean knew that. Sam's shoulder was a solid, warm pressure against his; Sam had slumped down against the pillows, and looked up at him now, studying him in the soft light from the bedside lamp. Dean knew as sure as he knew his own name that Sam wanted to kiss him, that he was thinking about it. Dean's stomach gave a slow, unsteady flip, and he tensed without meaning to. His heart thumped against his chest.

Sam moved, then; he got up fast, throwing his napkin in the trash and putting ten feet between them. "So, where to next?" he said, his voice too loud. He grabbed another beer and sat on the end of the other bed, his back to Dean.

The sting of disappointment was intense. Dean cleared his throat. "Memphis. Pam hooked me up with some friends of hers who can lay down some serious protective mojo." It was cold in the room, he realized; they'd let the air conditioner run too long. He hadn't felt it until Sam moved, but now goose bumps stood up on his arms.

Sam glanced over his shoulder, though his eyes slid away from Dean's after half a second. "Friends of Pam's? Should I be worried?"

"Bobby trusts her. How bad can it be?"

"I'm gonna remind you you said that."

Dean barely knew what they were talking about. He could feel his heartbeat pounding all through him, an awareness that made it hard to think. His chest felt tight, his breath locked up in his lungs. He got up without knowing he was going to.

Sam wouldn't look at him. His voice came rough when he said, "Dean, you were right."

"I was full of shit." Dean's hand shook as bad as the rest of him, but he reached out and pushed back the edge of Sam's hair so he could see his face. The thrill that curled through him sang way out of proportion.

Sam tensed under his hand, his body strung taut as a tripwire. "No. You were right. We can't." He said it like it cost him to get each word out.

"Yeah, definitely. Except no way am I gonna be able to keep my head in the game like this." Dean was hard just from touching Sam, from feeling the rock-solid strength and resistance in his body. He ached to get Sam against him, just that if nothing else, and it was a hunger he didn't know how to stem. His fingers curled.

Sam bowed his head, defeated. "Dean." It splintered apart, ragged in his throat.

He dropped his beer to the carpet and turned, reached out, grabbed hold of Dean by the waist. He hauled Dean between his thighs. Dean grabbed hold of Sam's shirt; their mouths sought and found each other, hot and desperate. Sam opened up to him and gave as good as he got, his tongue hungry against Dean's, the sharp edge of teeth on Dean's lips making Dean shove against him like he might die on the spot if he couldn't have more of Sam, all of him, right now. Sam pushed him down to his knees, and Dean was on board with that so fast his head spun.

Sam was so warm. The heat that came off him made Dean feel like he could breathe it in, grab hold of it and wrap himself up in it and never be cold again. He fumbled for Sam's shirt buttons, getting them open as fast as he could so that he could get his hands underneath and up against Sam's body. Christ, he felt good. So damn good, Dean never wanted to stop. He shoved Sam back on the bed, and Sam went, dragging Dean with him.

They shed clothes as fast as they could, Dean on top, Sam spread out under him, both of them pushing further up the bed as they stripped. Sam kicked him in the ankle; Dean elbowed Sam in the ribs and heard the soft rip of a hem tearing. They made out like horny kids through all of it, and Dean knew he should be embarrassed by the noises they made, by how desperate they were, but he was past caring. Sam's tongue in his mouth, his hand on the back of Dean's head, the way he opened up for Dean as if his life depended on it—Dean felt like it was the best fucking thing that had ever happened to him.

They got their jeans down, got their hands on each other at last and jerked each other off like that, legs tangled, boots colliding, fast and hot. Sam swelled thick in Dean's hand, his cock leaking all over the place. Dean thought Sam's tight, steady, jerking hold on his dick might kill him, it felt so good.

Halfway through it, the absurdity of how hot they were for each other made Sam start to laugh, and Dean knuckled him in the stomach but he was laughing, too. In the middle of it Sam shut him up by kissing him again, a deep, hungry kiss with his tongue up against Dean's. A moan locked in Dean's throat and he froze, his whole body shivering with it.

The second his come spurted against Sam's belly, Sam choked and swore and they came all over each other, both of them noisy and helpless in the face of it, still half-dressed, holding on to each other for dear life.

After, they lay next to each other, staring at the ceiling and breathing hard. Dean felt like the world had been yanked out from under him.

"Okay," Sam said at last. "That... really didn't suck."

"Yeah, I noticed."

"I didn't mean to—"

Dean pushed himself up to one elbow. "If you apologize, so help me God, I'll shave your head while you're asleep." Before he could second-guess himself, he said, "Look, I put this on you, and that's not fair. Makes it seem like we're not in this together, and we are. Believe me."

Sam stole a glance at Dean, then looked away. The deep flush of his skin spread. He cleared his throat. "Thank you, that's—thanks."

"Don't thank me. I still got no idea what the hell I'm doing."

Sam met his eyes. He swallowed. "I hate that we're lying to her."

"Yeah." Dean felt his stomach knot up again, but he didn't look away. He thought of that night he'd lain in bed beside Jules and felt Sam slipping away from him, of how close he'd come to letting it happen, and every part of him resonated with blunt, flat denial. He was never not gonna want this, he thought, looking at Sam all messed up, sweaty and hectic, their come drying on his skin. He was gonna want this with Sam for the rest of their lives.

It was written all over Sam's face, too, the same damn thing. There was no way this was ending with them being just brothers again. Not in this lifetime. But Dean saw Sam's jaw firm with resolve, and knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"We gotta stop, Dean. Until we figure out what we're gonna do."

It wouldn't be easy, but Dean knew he was right. They still had to be able to live with themselves, to look each other in the eye when this was over. "Yeah," he said roughly.

He was supposed to get up, now, he knew. Let them get some distance between them. Get himself together.

Instead, he let his arm give way; he put his face into Sam's neck and hauled Sam to him, and for a while they stayed like that, not saying anything else.


	3. Chapter 3

  
_I've been riding the pine a long time._  
But I'm in the game now, and I'm not on your side,  
or Michael's. I'm on theirs.

—Gabriel, "Hammer of the Gods"

  


* * *

Three weeks later, Dean wasn't any closer to knowing how to save his brother, but he was sure of one thing: he'd been right about this thing between him and Sam. It wasn't going away. He'd jerked off more in the last three weeks than he had in years, but it didn't help. It didn't keep him from thinking about things he shouldn't, any more than it took his mind off the fact that they were running out of places to look.

Faith healers, witches, psychics—they'd all agreed on one thing: whatever was coming for Sam, it was strong, and getting more powerful all the time. The word a lot of them used was _marked._ For what, by what, not one of them could say for sure, but after the last time Dean had heard it, he'd had enough. A week ago, he'd snuck out in the dead of night and put his picture in a box with a pinch of graveyard dirt and the bone of a black cat. He'd been starting the car to go bury the damn thing at a crossroads when Sam had yanked open the door and hauled him out with his fists.

Dean shoved him off, though it hadn't been easy. "I wasn't going to do anything! I just want to ask it some questions."

"I don't care if you were gonna buy it dinner and take it to the prom!" Sam snarled back at him, so furious Dean felt his rage like a physical assault. "You so much as think about pulling this shit again and I'm _gone._ You hear me? You'll never see me again."

Dean believed him, with a cold, quiet surety that sank into his bones. He watched Sam find the box and set it alight, his face set in an expression that Dean had never seen directed at him—not even after he'd made the deal for Sam's life.

Sam flung the box to the ground and watched it burn, and the look he turned on Dean before he marched back to the room shredded Dean's insides. Dean wished Sam would hit him. That look was worse, and made him feel like the lowest form of life there was.

Sam was so furious, he barely talked to Dean for three days. Dean had to admit he probably deserved that; it wasn't one of his finer moments. Sam had chilled out eventually, and more or less forgiven him, but ever since then, things had been tense.

Yesterday, they'd driven eight hundred miles to talk to yet another dead end. Dean was supposed to be figuring out their next move, but instead he stared at the computer screen, barely seeing it. He'd gotten maybe two hours of sleep the night before, none of it good, and he felt like death warmed over. His life with Jules was starting to seem like a dream. Like he'd slipped back in time to the days when he went to sleep every night with Dad's voice in his head telling him he had to save Sam, or kill him. The low-level terror felt like an old, familiar noose that fit him too well.

He was so far lost in morose thoughts that he didn't notice when the shower shut off. It wasn't until Sam emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam that Dean blinked, and remembered what he'd been looking at: tattoo art. Sam had already seen it. Dean bit back a sigh and steeled himself for the inevitable.

Sam didn't make fun of him, though, just came to look over Dean's shoulder. "What are those?"

"Protection symbols," Dean said gruffly. He flickered a glance in Sam's direction; Sam wore a thin, white T-shirt, a towel around his waist, and nothing else. Dean could smell Sam's soap, and he stopped close enough to the bed that Dean could feel the heat coming off him. They'd been good, so far, but it was killing him, and if Sam didn't put some damn clothes on, Dean might well punch him in the face.

"You thinking about another tattoo?" Sam said, leaning over him to look at the screen.

"Figured if one's good, more's better." He didn't bother saying it wasn't protection for himself he was after. The thought came without warning that if it was up to him, Sam would be covered with them, and before he could stop himself he was picturing it in full Technicolor.

 _Dammit._ Dean shifted, covering his lap with the laptop. It backfired on him, though, because that moved the screen out of Sam's field of vision and he sat down next to Dean to get a better view.

"What's that one?"

Dean's mouth went dry. "Maori. It's a shield design."

"What are those? Birds?"

_If one gets hit, the other one will come down to cover him with his wings, even if thus he could be killed himself. This represents brothers, or someone who will always be there to help._

"Yeah." Dean clicked to another design, hoping he'd been fast enough that Sam hadn't read the text under the image. Knowing Sam, the odds weren't good. "There's other stuff, though. The Egyptian ones are supposed to be pretty powerful." He needed to swallow, to clear his throat, but if he did, he'd give himself away. He barely knew what he was saying.

Sam took the laptop from him and set it aside.

Dean fought a reaction that felt dangerously close to panic. "Hey, I was looking at that."

"Come on, lay down."

"Sam—"

Sam let out a sigh, and gave him a look. "Just do it. Your back's a mess. It's killin' me to look at you."

The urge to obey flickered hot behind Dean's breastbone. Dean knew he shouldn't, but Sam was too close, his eyes on Dean's, and Dean wanted it too much. It had been rough on him, Sam's anger. He knew he deserved it, but it was still hard to take, and the thought of Sam's hands on him brought him stupidly close to trembling with relief.

"You sure?" he heard himself say.

Sam rolled his eyes, giving a soft laugh. He looked at the bed meaningfully.

Dean stretched out on his stomach, thinking he was out of his mind, and so was Sam, and he didn't know what the hell had gotten into his brother. Right now, he didn't care.

It took everything he had not to shiver or make a sound when Sam touched him. Sam's weight settled in beside him, the light, exploratory touch of his long fingers running along muscle groups. Then he went to work on Dean's back, steady circles of pressure mapping every knot and kink. Finally he started in earnest on the worst of them, thumbs digging in with unerring accuracy, and within half a minute Dean had to bite his lips to hold back the sounds he wanted to make because it felt so damn good, he could cry. Pain he'd stopped noticing weeks ago melted away under Sam's firm strength and the heat of his touch.

The pleasure wasn't just physical, any more than his sex cravings were just about sex. He'd been hungry for Sam to touch him any way and every way you could touch somebody, and this felt like an obscene five course dinner. He buried his face in his arms and bit back a groan.

"Better?" Sam asked, sounding pleased with himself. He didn't wait for an answer, just said, "Don't move. I mean it," and squeezed the back of Dean's neck. He got up, disappearing into the bathroom.

Dean couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to. His dick felt like iron pressed between him and the bed, and it was all he could do not to rock his hips into it. Euphoria sang through him in waves, and all he wanted was to lie there and let Sam touch him until he dissolved from the pleasure. _What the hell are you doing to me?_ he wanted to ask, but then Sam was back, and anticipation stole his breath.

Sam knelt on the bed, knees digging gently into Dean's side. Dean knew dimly that he'd put on sleep pants, at least; it hardly mattered because he heard the snap of a plastic cap, and then Sam was squirting cool lotion into his hands, slipping them under Dean's shirt.

Dean seriously thought he might die from how good it felt. He closed his eyes and bit his knuckles to stop the soft, choked sound that tried to escape him. Jesus Christ.

"Sammy—"

"Shut up. Let me do this."

Dean knew forgiveness when he heard it—when it went to work on his muscles like he was so much clay, and could be worked into a state of bliss like it was some kind of absolution for all his sins. But he couldn't escape the certainty that came with it. He knew there was a reason Sam was willing to cross the line he'd drawn; it was the same reason Dean was willing to let him.

They were running out of time.

Sam knew it, too. That awareness tied Dean's insides into a sick knot of despair, and he wanted to punch something, wanted to shoot that yellow-eyed sonofabitch in the face all over again six or eight times, but bit by bit, Sam took him apart, broke him down, and Dean was helpless to fight it. He hid his face in his arms, eyes squeezed shut against the desperation that burned there. He didn't want to relax his guard, but he couldn't fight the steady pressure and heat of Sam's hands. Sam touched him like he knew him inside and out, like he was hyperaware of every point of stress and tension in Dean's muscles.

The fall was inevitable. Dean knew that, had known it from the moment Sam touched him and he'd gone hard within seconds. He'd felt the same heat coming off Sam, and he hadn't done anything to stop it. He could have. Maybe, if he weren't human. If he hadn't needed this more than air.

He felt the moment when Sam tried to stop himself, when he hesitated with his thumbs resting in the hollows on either side of Dean's spine, a gentle, trembling pressure above his waistband. The hitch in Sam's breathing was soft, but Dean felt it deep in his gut and held his breath, waiting. Then Sam grabbed hold of Dean's sweat pants and Dean let the breath out in a rush, lifting his hips the second Sam pulled his waistband down.

Dean fisted his hands in the pillow and buried his face. He shivered in violent reaction as Sam stripped the pants off and reached between his legs, closing a hot, slippery hand around Dean's leaking dick and stroking, squeezing him tight. "Oh, God," he choked, thrusting into it before he could stop himself. Sam leaned over him then, slid his other hand up under the pillow and grabbed hold of Dean's wrists, pinning one with the weight of his arm and the other with an implacable grip.

For Dean, that was all she wrote. It did things to him he couldn't think about, having Sam pin him down like that, the pressure on his wrists and Sam's weight on him and the dark, smothering shelter of the pillow against his face, the tight, slick pressure of Sam's hand between his legs. He thrust helplessly. "Don't—" he choked, then tried to bite it back.

Sam froze, but before he could let go, Dean begged, "Don't stop," the words slipping out of him in a rush. "Sam, please."

"Dean," Sam said, voice low and breathless against Dean's ear. His hand squeezed tighter, then slipped back to slick Dean's hole. He massaged it, then his balls, and Dean lost it, writhing and shuddering against him.

Sam got rough with him, then, squeezing his dick hard and jerking him off with tight, steady strokes. Dean was already close when Sam let go for a second, his slick fingertips pushing into Dean's ass, the stretch making him feel dirty and hot and shameless, aching for Sam to fuck him for real. God—as soon as he thought it, he almost came; he wanted it more than anything. But before he could even process that, Sam went back to his cock, jerking faster. Dean yanked hard at Sam's hold on his wrists, but Sam held tight, and that was it. Dean started to shudder and come. A noise broke out of his throat like he was coming apart. High and breathless, he gasped out, "Sammy—" Oh, God.

Sam bowed his head between Dean's shoulder blades. He stayed like that, breathing hard, his hand tight around Dean's spasming cock and his breath hitching while Dean rode it out. When Dean was finally finished, Sam let go and pushed himself away from the bed.

"God. Fuck, I'm sorry."

And there was no way in hell Dean was gonna allow that. He caught Sam halfway to the bathroom, on his way to go jerk off by himself or some pathetic, emo crap like that; he got hold of Sam's hair in one hand and locked the other around Sam's upper arm, shoved him hard against the nearest wall.

"Want to mark you up," Dean said. "Ink all over you. See what you'd look like." He licked Sam's demon-warding tattoo, tasted it, bit at it. He felt Sam give a violent, whole-body shiver, and despite the fact that Dean had just come half his brain cells out of his body, he felt an answering throb of heat where it counted.

It took about thirty seconds with his hand down Sam's pants and his tongue in Sam's mouth to reduce Sam to a shivering wreck. He'd never get used to it, Dean thought, the low moan Sam gave whenever Dean kissed him, a sound he felt more than heard. It was like Sam couldn't believe it was happening, like he broke apart on some fundamental level every time.

Sam tore himself away from Dean's mouth and looked at him, panting and miserable. "Dean. We can't."

It was stupid; it was the stupidest thing Dean's idiotically smart brother had said to him in months. Dean forced Sam's head back, went after his neck with teeth and lips and tongue while he worked Sam mercilessly until he cried out and came all over Dean's fist in messy, desperate pulses. The look on his face made Dean feel like he was alight with power, like he could fly if he wanted. Teeth bared as if they were fighting instead of fucking, Dean told him, "Hate to break it to you, genius, but we just did."

They stared at each other. Dean saw in Sam's face the same shell-shocked recognition he felt. Then Sam started to laugh, breathless and fucked out with his dick still in Dean's hand. But the look in his eyes wasn't funny in the least.

Dean's phone rang. Dean crashed his forehead into Sam's chest, closing his eyes like a prayer for strength. "Fuck, you gotta be kidding me."

"Answer it," Sam told him. His hand closed around Dean's wrist. "It's Bobby." Dean lifted his head and saw the direction of Sam's look; from where he was, he could see the display on Dean's phone where it lay on the table.

"Goddammit," Dean swore, but a crazy, soaring hope broke open his chest, and he could breathe again for the first time that day. _Bobby._ Saving their asses at the last minute, if anyone up there gave a crap. He pushed himself away from Sam and went to find his pants; Sam tucked himself back into his, then went to the phone and picked it up.

"Hey, Bobby," Sam said. "What's up?"

Dean wiped Sam's come off on Sam's discarded towel and made a face at him, which Sam ignored. Sam listened for a minute, then frowned. "What made her think it's a demon?" he said. He blocked Dean's grasp and angled the phone out of reach. "Just a second. Dean wants to hear this. Let me put you on speaker." _Chill,_ he mouthed at Dean, holding the phone up like it was a gun and Dean was a cop ordering him to put down his weapon.

"Pain in my ass," Dean muttered back at him. He snatched the phone out of Sam's hand and hit the button.

"Got a hit on one of my websites," Bobby told them. "Couple days ago. Woman in Baton Rouge claims her thirteen-year-old son's possessed. Started back around the third week of February."

Dean met Sam's eyes. "Same as Amber," Sam said, the same thing Dean was thinking.

Bobby said, "I know it ain't much, but the coincidence was enough to set my spidey-sense tingling. Woulda handled it myself, but...what do you think? You and Sam want to take it?"

"Yeah, we're on it, Bobby, thanks," Dean answered, looking at Sam and seeing they were on the same page.

After they hung up, silence fell. "Are we gonna talk about this?" Sam asked. His eyes were bright, and he looked good enough to eat, his hair curling and skin flushed, the haze of pleasure still thick in his face. But under it he looked tired, the soul-deep kind of tired, and it made Dean's gut turn over and coil in on itself. He pushed it down, grabbing on to hope with both hands.

"Later," he said, slapping lightly Sam on the chest. "You heard the man. We got work to do."

* * *

By the time they hit Shreveport, Sam concluded that they were chasing shadows. He couldn't find a single piece of evidence that demons had been anywhere near the Davis house in the past six months. No weird weather patterns. No cattle deaths.

He kept his mouth shut. They had nothing in the way of leads when it came to their own case, and he was all in favor of taking a break from it to help someone else—especially if it meant a respite from the awful look on Dean's face the last couple of days. Sam was sick of seeing the terror Dean tried so hard to keep controlled, and worrying about what it might drive him to. He was sick of keeping his hands to himself, when all he wanted was to take Dean to bed and stay there for a week. He was sick of everything being about him and the time bomb ticking in his head. It was exhausting.

"Tell us what happened, Mrs. Davis," Sam said, sitting at her kitchen island as a summer storm rolled in, the late afternoon sky going dark at the windows. Dean sat beside him, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. "You said everything started six months ago?"

"That's right."

She had a deliberate calm about her that lent her words weight. Sam could see why Bobby had passed this one along; demons or no, Louise Davis was not the kind of woman to cry wolf, or ask for help unless the situation were bad. She wore a silver cross around her neck and a simple gray turtleneck and slacks. She was a slim woman, dark-skinned and attractive. Her husband had died six years ago, she'd told them. She'd weathered that storm and raised two kids on her own, but Sam could see that what was happening now had shaken her. She kept a strong grip on her own coffee cup as she told the story, but even that wasn't enough to keep her hands steady.

"The first time it happened was right after Cynthia left for Rhode Island," she said.

"Cynthia's your daughter?"

Louise nodded. "She's starting at Brown in the fall. She graduated early and moved to Providence in February, so she could get a job and get to know her way around. She's on a full scholarship, but she wanted her own money, too."

"That's impressive," Sam said. "She must be a great student."

"Valedictorian of her class," Louise said. "She's always been smart as can be. Couldn't wait to go to college."

"What happened after she left?"

"She and Michael have always been close. It wasn't easy, when Duke died. I had to work, so Cindy looked after Michael a lot, you know? She always looked out for him." She looked at her hands. "Michael's always had problems, but as long as his sister was around, I didn't worry too much. Now—" She took a deep breath, then met Sam's gaze. "A couple of nights after Cynthia left, I heard him talking. It woke me up. At first, I thought he was talking in his sleep, but..." Sam saw the fear she tried to control.

"It's all right, Mrs. Davis. Take your time."

"It wasn't English. It wasn't any language I ever heard before. I went into his room, and his eyes were closed like he was asleep, but these words were just pouring out of him. I don't know how to explain it, but I knew whatever he was saying, it was _evil._ " Her expression quirked in an ironic smile. "I know how that sounds, believe me. I go to church, and I believe in God, but I'm a modern woman. I work in a bank."

Dean said, "Trust me, we understand. Most people wouldn't believe a fraction of the things we've seen. If you say something's after your son, we're gonna take you seriously."

"So, what did you do?" Sam asked.

"I woke him up. It wasn't easy. At first, I don't think he even heard me, but then I grabbed hold of him and I said, 'Michael Davis, this is your mother, and I want you to wake up right now!' And he did. He didn't even know anything was wrong. He said, 'what's wrong, Mom?' like I was crazy for waking him up. I asked him if he'd had a bad dream, but he said no, that he didn't remember anything."

"Were you able to make out any of the words, by any chance?"

"Not that night. But later, when it happened again, I recorded it." She pushed a mini-recorder across the counter toward them, and Sam took it.

"How many times would you say this has happened?" Dean asked.

"Six times before this week. At first, I took him to a child psychiatrist. That was after the third time it happened in a month. I thought maybe because of his dad, and then his sister leaving, you know? For a while, things were better. But then—other things started happening."

"What kinds of things?" Dean asked.

"One night, I heard him, worse than before. When I went into his room, he was sitting up in the middle of the bed, and his eyes were open—I can't describe how awful it was. It didn't even sound like him. But that wasn't the worst part. His eyes were full of blood. I've never seen anyone look like that. And everything on his shelves—pictures, everything—it had all flown off and smashed on the opposite wall, like it happened all at once, you know?" She took a sip of her coffee, steadying herself. "I went to my pastor after that. I didn't know what else to do."

"Our associate, the one you contacted, he said there'd been other manifestations, too."

She nodded. "It's been getting worse. I've been hearing voices at night. This last time, he broke every mirror in the house. He got cut up pretty bad. If we don't get some help, I'm scared of where this will end."

"You did the right thing," Dean said. "Me and my brother, we're gonna help you." He glanced at Sam. "Listen, I got another question for you. I hate to ask, but... your husband. Can I ask how he died?"

"His heart. Doctors did everything they could, but it was too late."

"And the house? Do you know if anything bad ever happened here? Like a murder, a fire, anything like that?"

"Not that I know of. But it's an old house, so anything is possible. Mr. Singer asked me that, too. Why?"

"We like to cover all the bases," Sam said. "Sometimes, in cases like this, there's a spirit that needs to be put to rest." He looked at Dean, and could tell they were thinking the same thing. "We'll need a little time to do some digging, and get a few things together. Normally, we'd tell you and Michael to go stay with a friend in the meantime, but it sounds like whatever's causing this, your son is the focus. So, if it's all right with you, we'd like to come back in couple of hours. Will Michael be home, then?"

She said it was, and he would, and showed them to the door, thanking them and telling them to drive carefully. The sky had opened up while they were talking, and they dashed through sheeting rain and wind to take refuge in the car. Lightning lit up the sky.

Sam shook rain out of his hair, pushing the wet strands away from his face. Dean started the engine and turned on the defroster.

While they waited for the windshield to clear, Sam hit 'play' on the mini-recorder. The eerie, hair-raising sound of Michael Davis channeling something dark and twisted filled the car. They listened to it for a minute, until their nerves had had enough and Sam turned it off. The windswept lashing of the rain and the roll of thunder felt like a blessing after that.

"That sound like Latin to you?" he asked.

Dean grunted. "More like the backmasked track on _Hell Awaits._ "

Sam nodded. He looked at Dean. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked, though he was pretty sure of the answer.

"Yeah," Dean said, scowling at the downpour. "Go ahead, tell me you told me so."

Sam said nothing. It wasn't like he wanted to be right about this, but there was no point in pretending it was anything but what it looked like.

"Poltergeists," Dean spat out then, like it was a swear word. "Hate these damn things."

"Tell me about it," Sam said with a humorless laugh. It had been a poltergeist that had knocked Sam out cold, then thrown Dean over a two-story railing onto marble tile and messed up his knee and his back in the first place. Plus, it always reminded them of the last time they were in the house in Lawrence.

Dean pulled away from the curb. "Find us a place to buy supplies, and let's waste this son of a bitch."

* * *

The storm passed within half an hour, leaving everything washed clean, turning the sky an intense, weird golden color as the sun went down. The twisted black arms of the old oak trees made threatening silhouettes against it. As the last of that unnatural light faded, they pulled up in front of the Davis house armed with hex bags, vervain, van van oil, a hand axe, and salt-loaded shotguns.

"For the record?" Dean said as they headed up the front walk. "I hate this plan."

"Not in love with it myself, Dean. But we have to get it to fixate someplace other than Michael if we want to destroy it."

"And once it's fixated on you, then what?"

"Then we bind it to the house, and finish the purifying ritual."

Sam counted it a win that Dean was willing to go through with this at all. _No. No way, not a goddamned chance in hell,_ were Dean's actual words when Sam told him what he had in mind. It had taken half an hour of reasoned argument to make him come around, and Sam knew that was only because Bobby had confirmed what they already knew: poltergeists that attached to a person instead of a place were notoriously hard to destroy. Without killing the person, that is.

At the door, Dean stopped and gave him a hard look. Sam knew he was a hair away from locking Sam in the trunk and going in there by himself, and screw any plan that involved Sam putting himself in the way of this thing. "You got any idea how many different ways this could go bad?" Dean demanded.

"You got a better idea, I'm all ears."

Dean didn't, of course. He'd stopped denying Sam's abilities years ago, when he'd watched Sam tear Lilith out of her vessel and wipe her out of existence without laying a hand on her. That didn't mean he liked it any better than he ever had, but even Dean couldn't deny that Sam was their best chance at saving this kid.

It was a testament to the kind of man Dean was that that was enough to shut him up, to get him standing here on this stranger's doorstep ready to let Sam do what he had to, when Sam knew what it was costing him. Given the same choice, Sam wasn't sure he could do the same.

What doesn't kill us, Sam thought, and knocked on the door.

* * *

As usually happened in situations like this, the first part of the plan worked like they meant it to. Michael Davis was a brave kid, and he let them perform the cleansing ritual on him with barely a flinch. Dean stood by with the shotgun and the nervous mom while Sam worked some good old-fashioned hoodoo on him; the herbs and purifying oil were enough to get the geist riled up, just like they thought it would. They'd cleared the room of everything breakable before they started, anything that could be turned into a projectile, and Dean was glad of that when the shit hit the fan.

The next part was hard to hold still for. It went against every instinct Dean had to stand aside and watch as Sam stood in the middle of that room, wind whipping at his hair, and closed his eyes, reaching out to that thing like he was calling it home. Only the kid's frightened face—and Louise Dixon's as she held on to Michael and cried, screamed at the thing to get the hell away from her son—kept Dean from dragging Sam the hell out of there and driving away as fast and as far as his car would take them.

"Now!" Sam yelled at last, opening his eyes, his hands flexed open at his sides, fingers curling up like he was holding on to something none of them could see. "Go! Get out of here!"

The Dixons obeyed, Louise grabbing Michael by the hand and pulling him to the front door. Dean followed, gripping his shotgun with one hand and hustling them out with the other, making sure they made it out onto the lawn before he slammed the door behind them and slid the deadbolt home. A low, keening wail sounded through the house as he ran back up the hall. It wasn't human, that sound, and Dean prayed to God it hadn't come from his brother.

"Sammy!"

Sam hadn't moved. He was where Dean had left him, the cyclone around him so fierce now that Dean staggered to one side when he came through the door, knocked off his feet for a second. Sam's eyes were on him, his face twisted up with the effort it was costing him to hold on to the thing. "Dean," he said, like a punch. "Now. Finish it."

Dean moved. His hands shook, and he felt slow, clumsy as hell, like it was taking him forever to get the paper unfolded from his pocket, the vial of oil uncapped, the rest of the symbol painted on the wood floor. He burned the vervain and Angelica root and said the words like he was supposed to. Finally, it was done, and he drew the last part of the symbol, closing the circle.

The second he did, blunt force knocked him back. He hit the wall hard, but managed to hold on to his gun; a flash of white light like napalm blinded him, making him flinch and throw an arm up to shield his eyes.

The light came from Sam. And the sound, a raw cry that scraped across every nerve Dean had. Dean blinked fiercely against sudden blindness and swore; after an endless few seconds, he managed to clear enough of the afterimage that he could see Sam's outline, crouched on his hands and knees in the middle of the banishing rune Dean had painted under him. "Sam!" Dean yelled, and scrambled toward him.

The wind storm had died down already, though an ominous, low, groaning sound creaked through the floorboards. Dean didn't spare attention for it. All he cared about was getting to Sam. All his worst nightmares crashed in on him in those few seconds, and he half expected Sam to collapse into his arms when he finally got hold of his brother, got his hands on Sam's shoulders.

But Sam was breathing. He lifted his head when Dean grabbed hold of him, and his hand closed around Dean's upper arm, his grip solid. His eyes found Dean's, and they looked alert, sane. Like himself. "I'm okay," he said. "Dean, I'm fine."

Dean held on, giving himself a second to process that. "Did it work?" he asked when he could.

"Yeah. I think so." Sam fell back on his haunches, listening. "You hear it? It's trapped, and it knows it."

Dean gave a soft laugh. "Think we pissed it off," he said, but relief was unspooling through him in wild, euphoric waves. "Come on," he said, and pushed himself to his feet, pulling Sam up with him. "I'll take the upstairs, you take care of down here."

Sam nodded. He grabbed four of the hex bags and gave the rest to Dean, then pulled his sawed-off out of the holster he wore on his back. "Be careful, okay?"

"Aw, c'mon, Sammy, I'm always careful," Dean said with a grin. He jacked his shotgun and headed for the stairs.

And that, of course, was around the time that things went south.

* * *

Dean was in trouble and he knew it. He'd known it since the door to Michael Dixon's room had slammed behind him, and he'd busted through it to find only solid brick behind it. He could hear Sam yelling from somewhere close by.

There'd been a window in here when he'd come in. It was gone now, and a shadow flickered in the wallpaper; Dean could see it out of the corner of his eye, but every time he pointed the shotgun at it, it moved, so it was always at the edges of his vision. "Awesome," he muttered, trying to find a surface to put his back against that didn't have wallpaper on it. "Bind it to the house, what a great idea, Sammy. Why didn't I think of it?"

"Dean!" Sam's panicked voice sounded closer.

"Sam! In here!"

A muffled thud sounded through the wall: Sam going at the door from the other side with what sounded like a sledgehammer. The crash came again and again. There was no way in hell any normal door would stand up to that; whatever was keeping Dean in this room was keeping Sam from getting to him.

"Dean, the hex bag!"

Dean didn't want to turn his back on the thing, but it wasn't like he had a choice. South corner, he thought, and hoped like hell that the geist hadn't turned things around on him while it was rearranging the doors and windows.

He blew a ragged hole in the drywall and shoved the hex bag into it. The second he did, the door imploded and Sam came through it, looking a little worse for wear but still the best damn sight Dean had ever laid eyes on. He had a streak of drywall dust on one side of his face. His knuckles were bloody, and he looked like an avenging angel, his face drawn in fury at the invisible entity that had kept him from getting to Dean.

"I'm okay," Dean said. "Got 'em all but one." He held up the last hex bag—and no sooner were the words out than he felt something grab on to his leg.

He gave a violent shiver of revulsion as his body registered the unmistakable sensation of a cold, slimy, steely hand closing around the back of his knee. "Motherfucker," he swore, and tried to jerk himself out of its grasp. He looked down, but didn't see anything; the hands were invisible, and, fuck, it was _hands,_ because now there was another one, clamping around his left thigh. Sam had hold of him, too. "Go," Dean managed, yanking his leg hard and trying to break free. He pushed the hex bag into Sam's hands. "Get the last one, goddammit, _go._ "

He shoved Sam in front of him, and Sam stumbled and pitched forward like the thing had hold of him, too, but he held on to Dean as if the house would fall down around them before he'd let go. Sam yanked at him by the waist, hauled him forward, and together they managed to scramble out into the hallway on hands and knees.

No sooner had they made it there than all the lights went out at once. Dean cursed. It was close to pitch dark there in the middle of the house, and he blinked, trying to get his eyes to adjust. The only light was a faint glow from the huge picture window at the top of the stairs, a sliver of moon trying to shine through the clouds.

Slime oozed up between his fingers. "Shit," he muttered, and felt Sam struggling to his feet beside him. "Sam. Ecto." He wiped it off on the carpet, then put out a hand to push himself up. That was when he heard it: a quiet, ominous crackling sound, like thin ice over the surface of a lake.

He had maybe two seconds to react. The window, he thought, and had a sudden, visceral memory of knives flinging themselves at him in the kitchen in Lawrence. He looked up and saw, silhouetted against the sky, a spider web of cracks that started in one corner of that massive pane of glass and spread as he watched, eerily beautiful, like the formation of ice crystals.

In the second he had left, he yelled "Get down!" and launched himself at Sam headlong, flung them both bodily down the first set of stairs to crash in a heap on the landing.

He went down hard on his bad knee. Stars burst behind his eyes from the pain, but he barely felt it; all he could think was to put himself between Sam and that window, to try and cover him with his body. He had hold of Sam's head and tucked it down, tried to cover their faces, but he knew even as he did it that it wasn't going to be enough. And Sam, goddamn it, wouldn't hold still; he rolled fast and threw Dean off, and before Dean could recover, the agonized, splintered sound of shattering glass exploded over their heads.

The shards came at them in a glinting, deadly mass. Sam, his back pressed against Dean's chest, flung a hand up. Dean felt Sam go rigid against him. Saw, in the faint moonlight, the jagged knives of glass, halted in their vengeful trajectory by an invisible force.

Dean stared. The forest of razor shards hovered frozen in midair halfway down the stairs. Some of them were three feet long. One of those, its edge silvered and gleaming, pointed right at his face. Then Sam—trembling against Dean with his hand upraised—made a fist, and the shards imploded, pulverized into a fine, sparkling dust. When Sam released his fist it showered down like snow, the edge of that mass hitting the carpet two feet in front of them.

Sam let out a ragged gasp, and relaxed for a second before he pushed himself to his knees and checked Dean. His hands felt icy when they touched Dean's face, when they ran swiftly down his throat and chest, checking for blood. "You okay?" he asked, and he sounded as shaky as Dean felt.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Are you?" Sam's hand landed on his knee, prodding gently, and Dean sucked in a sharp breath as white-hot agony shot through him.

"Fine," Sam said. "Can you move?"

"Give me a minute," Dean grunted.

A low, ominous creaking ran through the house, and Dean felt it through the floor in a way he most definitely did not like.

"Don't think we have a minute," Sam said, echoing Dean's thought. Then he said, "Wait here," and before Dean could stop him, he had a hand on the railing and his boots on the glass-encrusted stairs.

"Sam, wait!" But it was too late. Sam disappeared into the dark, and Dean almost made himself sick trying to get up and follow him. "Fuck, goddammit," he swore, curling onto his back and cradling his knee. Ligament didn't want to support it, and he might have cracked something on top of it.

He squeezed his eyes shut and fumbled for his gun, trying to listen for Sam, for the thing that wanted to kill them. Somewhere far off, he could hear sirens, but over that, a dark, growling sound made the hair stand up on his neck. It sounded like it was coming from the beams of the house itself. And, he realized with a grim, sinking certainty, he could smell smoke.

"Sammy!" Dean rolled over, grabbed hold of the stair rail and hauled himself up by brute force. His knee throbbed like a bitch, and putting weight on it was out of the question, but there was no way in hell he was going to let a bum knee keep him from Sam, not trapped in a burning house with an evil spirit that had already gotten a taste of his brother.

He was halfway up the treacherous half-flight of stairs when he heard a crash from above, then a shotgun blast. His pulse thundered in his ears, and his breath came in short, sharp pants that had nothing to do with physical pain or exertion and everything to do with the panic that clutched at his heart and tried to squeeze the air out of him. "Come on, you son of a bitch," he said under his breath, hauling himself up one step at a time with one arm clenched over the rail. "Goddamned useless piece of shit. Come the fuck on." The second shotgun blast wrenched a soft sob of frustration out of him.

And then, like the grace of God, the house gave a violent shudder and a flash of white light blinded him; he saw it move across his vision like a blast wave, felt it pass through him with a wail that he wasn't sure he actually heard with his ears.

In a second, it was over. Dean clung to the railing; the silence that followed that blinding flash felt like a door had been slammed shut. The whole thing had taken barely two minutes.

It wasn't until Sam appeared on the landing, whole and unhurt, that Dean let himself take a real breath. He stood trembling at the top of the stairs, leg useless beneath him, and met Sam's eyes, not bothering to hide the relief.

"Dean," Sam said, in the way that Dean would never, ever grow tired of. He hurried to Dean's side, holstering his gun and reaching out, pulling Dean's arm over his shoulder. He coughed; the smoke was getting thicker.

"It's over?" Dean asked, leaning into Sam and only too glad to do it.

"It's over," Sam said, and took most of his weight. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"Don't have to ask me twice."

Sam got them down the stairs, his strength a blessed certainty against Dean's side, half-carrying him as they ran down the stairs and the long hall toward the front door. Smoke poured under the door at the top of the basement stairs. They barreled through a wall of heat as they covered their faces and staggered past it.

They plunged out into the warm summer night. The pain was distant, now, numbed by adrenaline, and Dean felt hyperaware of his brother, a wall of strength beside him, his hand locked solidly around Dean's wrist and the smell of his sweat and blood a familiar comfort mixed in with the green, humid smells in the fresh air they pulled in by the lungful. Louise came running over to them when they made it down the front steps, and helped Sam lower Dean to the wet grass. "Thank God," she kept saying, "Oh, thank God," and Dean knew how she felt. The fire engine and paramedics rounded the corner, sirens cutting through the night.

"It's all right," Sam said, crouched at Dean's side, his hands still on Dean and showing no sign of letting go. "It's over now."

Dean lost some time, then, to the adrenaline crash and the chaos of firemen and EMTs, to Sam hovering over him like he'd been shot, instead of just ripping up his knee. This kind of scene was one neither of them would ever be able to take in stride, but Dean would choose this version—where he and Sam were both alive and more or less fine and nobody had died—over the alternative, any day.

Sam insisted he get his knee looked at, so Dean sat on a stretcher and suffered in silence while a burly EMT sliced his jeans open to the thigh and examined the joint before splinting it and putting cold packs on it, fussing over him way more than Dean was comfortable with. Dean refused point blank to get in the back of the ambulance, insisting no hospitals, until the guy gave up in annoyance and went to report in.

"Get me out of here," he told Sam when they were finally alone. The firefighters had put the flames out by then. Sam went to get the car, and Dean saw him say something to Louise Davis, who had her arm around her son but let go long enough to clasp Sam's hand in both of hers, then wave to Dean.

"Told her we'd check back tomorrow," Sam said as he helped Dean off the stretcher and got him into the back of the car. He broke out a handful of pain killers from the first aid kit and handed his brother a half-empty bottle of warm Gatorade to wash them down. "Still think we should take you to the ER," he said, watching Dean stretch out across the bench seat.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Give me a break. Nothin' some ice and a few days off it won't fix."

"Uh huh. You sure you didn't hit your head in there, too?"

"Get in the damn car, and quit with the crazy talk, or I won't be held accountable for my actions."

"Yeah, 'cause you look really scary right now," Sam told him, eyeing his wrapped-up knee. "I'm terrified."

"See if you're still talking shit after I put Icy Hot in your toothpaste," Dean muttered, but it wasn't like Sam was listening to him.

Sam got behind the wheel, and Dean didn't examine too closely the deep sense of safety and contentment that came over him. It might have been the narcs Sam had given him, but there was something profoundly wonderful about being able to look over the front seat of his car and see Sam's profile, streaked with sweat and dust and soot as he drove them away from there. He could see Sam's hands on the wheel, like they belonged there; the knowledge that they'd come out of that house in one piece—that they'd kept each other alive and saved a kid and his mom and now Sam was gonna take care of him, baby him a little, fuss over him and let Dean harass him as much as he wanted for a day or two—it sang warm and sweet inside him, a specific kind of pleasure he hadn't known in a long time.

"Felt good tonight, didn't it?" Dean said when they pulled up at a traffic light. He felt half sleepy and half drugged into a happy, relaxed languor. Sam cast a wry, affectionate look back over the seat, and Dean basked in it like a cat in the sun.

"You mean, aside from that thing trying to burn the house down, and us almost dying and you probably doing permanent damage to your knee?"

"Yeah, besides that."

"Yeah, it did," Sam admitted.

The light changed, and Sam stepped on the gas. The street lights drew a rhythmic pattern of acid gold on the windows.

"I missed it," Dean said, sleep heavy in him. "Missed us," escaped him on the heels of it; he hadn't meant to say that part out loud.

"Yeah," Sam said. His voice sounded thick. "Me, too."

* * *

Dean woke groggily when Sam opened the car door. Sam watched him tilt his head back, blinking up at the neon motel sign. "Hey," Sam said. "You gonna sleep out here, or want to try getting to the room?"

Dean groaned, and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "Dude, what'd you give me? I feel like I got kicked in the head."

"In the good way, I hope. Come on, sleeping beauty. Let's get you inside."

"Bite me," Dean said, but he reached an arm up and let Sam get a shoulder under it. Sam hauled him up and got them moving, trying not to notice how good it felt to have Dean up against him like this. Dean was in no shape to do anything about it, and after this morning, Sam had sworn to himself that he was going to keep his hands off Dean if it killed him.

Dean shoved him off when they got to the room. "Stop fussing, dude. Go get me some ice, Jesus." Sam knew Dean didn't want Sam to see him struggle to get his jeans off. Come to think of it, he had a point, because Sam might be tempted to help and that would lead nowhere good.

Sam left his brother sitting on the edge of the bed and grabbed the ice bucket. _Missed us,_ kept running through his head, two words that shouldn't have been able to work the kind of alchemy in his blood that they did. It wasn't like Dean had ever made a secret of the fact that the world was an infinitely better place in his eyes when Sam was within his reach. But hearing him say it like that on the heels of everything that had happened tonight was enough to light a steady flame in Sam's belly. It was the way he'd said it, like _us_ was a pronoun specific to Sam and Dean, like it meant something particular and rare, something Dean valued and wanted to keep.

Sam fought the butterflies in his stomach that refused to settle. Whatever else happened, he'd been given a gift, these last few weeks. But it was time to let go.

He stepped off the sidewalk and crossed a patch of grass, heading toward the ice machine. Moths fluttered and dipped around a citrine bulb above it. The soft rush of cars on the interstate sounded like a river in the distance; it was a sound he'd known all his life, and it never failed to make him feel connected to the world, like he had a place in that steady current, like it was the road that held everything together, and he was a part of it. He and Dean and their dad, and all the other hunters, out there helping people like they had tonight.

They'd tried everything they knew; at least Dean would know that, now. Maybe it would make things a little easier. Maybe the time they'd had together would give him something concrete to hold on to. As for Sam, he felt like whatever came, he'd be ready for it. He'd always known Dean loved him, that was never in doubt, but it was good, he thought, that they'd had this one last hunt together. It was a legacy he could get behind.

It was the last thought he had before the jagged spear of pain lanced into his left eye. He went to his hands and knees in the wet grass, sickening agony exploding in his head and a smear of flashing images blinding him.

* * *

Sam came back to himself panting and shivering with pain, his fists clenched and his face resting against them. The knees of his jeans had soaked through, and for long minutes he closed his eyes and breathed through it, trying not to be sick.

Another one. The first in a month, Sam thought, and then on the heels of that: two left. Two left plus him. Chloe Watson, this time, in Spokane—she'd been out at a bar with friends. He'd seen her get up from the table, saying she was going to the restroom. _You okay?_ one of her friends had asked her. _You don't look so hot._ She'd gone down halfway across the bar, clutching her head, and been dead inside two minutes.

Sam pushed himself shakily to his feet. The visions were getting worse. Whether that was because his own time was running out, or because of what he'd done at the Davis house tonight, he didn't know.

He was halfway to the room before he remembered the ice and had to go back for it. When he finally made it back, he opened the door as quietly as he could, hoping that Dean had passed out again and wouldn't notice how long Sam had been gone. But Dean was awake, sitting up in the bed with his knee propped on a pillow and the remote control resting on his leg. His eyes were on Sam, and his mellow Demerol haze was wearing off fast.

"Took you long enough. You get lost?"

"Ran into a guy at the ice machine who wanted to tell me his life's story. Seemed like he needed to talk to somebody." Sam wished he knew how long he'd been out; he had to hope it had only been a few minutes.

"Such a boy scout," Dean said. He studied Sam for a second, and Sam tried hard for normal, bringing him the ice in its plastic baggie and grabbing an extra pillow from the other bed to prop his leg up higher. It prompted Dean's annoyance like he'd known it would.

"Dude, quit it. It's fine." His wince gave him away, but Sam let it slide. "We shoulda got burgers," Dean complained.

"We could order Chinese," Sam suggested. "Think I saw a menu at the front desk." The thought of food made him queasy, but if it would distract Dean, he'd manage. He didn't think him getting behind the wheel of the car would be such a good idea right now.

"Nah, screw it. Gonna fall asleep again in a few minutes anyway. We'll get breakfast." His eyes slid to Sam again, and Sam knew he had to get Dean's attention off of him, or Dean was going to clue in fast. Even half-drugged and beat to hell, not much got past his brother, and Sam had the feeling that tonight, more of himself was bleeding past his edges than usual.

"What are you watching?" he asked, and tried to ignore the tightening in his stomach as he crossed to the other side of the bed and sat down, stretching his legs out on top of the covers, a bare twelve inches between him and Dean. As diversionary tactics went, it was effective; it threw Dean badly enough that he forgot he was supposed to be sussing Sam out and reverted to trying to play it cool—just like Sam had hoped he would.

"Nothin'. Just flipping channels."

Sam stole the remote and hit the button until he landed on a rerun of _Pawn Stars._ It played for a minute before Dean said, his voice low, "You planning on sleeping there, or what?"

"Just go with it," Sam told him, all bravado and desperation and not an ounce of self-preservation or reason. "I can see better from over here."

"Right," Dean said, like it made perfect sense. Like they were eight and twelve again, and fit easily in a double bed. Like he wasn't half-convinced Sam had finally cracked.

But within ten minutes, he'd slumped down against Sam's shoulder, his eyes drooping closed. It woke every nerve in Sam's body, the crowd of butterflies back with a vengeance, but it also made him feel better than anything else could have. After everything that had happened today, he needed it.

Dean had been right when he'd said Sam's plan could have gone bad in so many ways. Sam had felt the power of the entity in that house, and if Sam hadn't been strong enough, hadn't been able to hold on to it and control it, it might have controlled him, and burned half the city down if it wanted to.

He'd seen the look on Dean's face when Sam had stopped the broken glass from running them through. It had been pure instinct. He'd told himself he couldn't do those things any more, but the potential was still within him, running deep and fast below the surface. To use it was to court the Devil—no one knew that better than him—but that power was seductive. It had felt good tonight, reaching out and saving Dean's life, saving them both. He could get used to it.

He remembered killing Ruby and drinking her blood so he could take on Lilith, and the way Dean had looked at him when his eyes changed. Sam knew the real power lay within him; demon blood only helped him tap into it. It fed his anger, and helped him get past his fear, but there were other ways, other triggers. His love for his brother, his fear for him, was the surest path Sam knew. His abilities were strongest when Dean was in trouble—always had been.

Telekinesis was nothing to what he could do if he tried. The Trickster had hinted as much, when he'd put the key into Sam's hands to change the course of Fate. If Sam had to die to correct the imbalance he'd created, he couldn't help feeling there were worse prices to pay.

Sam thought about what would happen if he could change the past the way he had once changed the future. If he could change things so he was never born—one last tear in the fabric of things to erase himself from existence, from Dean's life. But when it came down to it, he didn't have it in him. Selfish, Dean had called him once, and Sam knew he was right. He was too selfish to sacrifice what they were to each other, even if it meant it would be all the harder on Dean when he was gone.

In his sleep, Dean turned to him, one hand winding itself in Sam's shirt, resting against his heart. Sam closed his eyes and gave a silent prayer that this time, when the time came, they'd both be able to let go.


	4. Chapter 4

They went back to Louise Davis's house the next day. Sam drove. The swelling in Dean's knee had gone down, but it still wouldn't take his weight, and there was no way in hell he could work the pedals. Sam watched him hop around the motel room for an hour before he went out and came back with a cane, telling Dean to be a man and suck it up. "It won't kill you," he'd said, and Dean thought it might be technically true, but that didn't make it any less humiliating. Sam made it up to him with scrambled eggs, biscuits, and gravy.

Louise met them on her own. She and Michael were staying with a friend; the fire and smoke damage were bad enough that they were going to have to get a restoration team in to rehab the house before they could live in it. "But at least we still have a house, thanks to you," she told them. "We can't thank you enough for what you've done." She pressed an envelope into Dean's hand, and a cooler with sandwiches and homemade cookies. "Now, don't argue," she warned before they could say anything. "It's not much, considering, but I won't take no for an answer. You take that, and you take care of yourselves, you hear me?"

"We will," Dean told her, thinking of his mom. Of what she would have said, if she'd known Dean and Sam would still be doing this thirty years after she died. He hugged Louise, and then Sam did, and they got back in the car and hit the road.

* * *

  


They were close to the interstate entrance ramp, stopped at a light, when Sam said, "Dean, listen. I want to ask you something."

All of Dean's alarm bells went off at once. "Shoot," he heard himself say.

"I think we should take a break. Maybe think about heading home." At Dean's expression, Sam's hands tightened on the wheel and he averted his gaze. His face scrunched up as he looked out at the overcast sky. "I just think it would be good to chill for a while. Give you a chance to heal up."

Dean got it, then, in a flash of insight so strong, it sucked the breath out of him.

"When?" he demanded.

Sam's sudden stillness confirmed it. "When what?"

"You _know_ what." But he already knew. "It was last night, wasn't it? When you went out to get the ice." At Sam's sidelong, guilty look, Dean's hands closed into fists. "Goddammit, I knew it."

"Dean, listen—"

"Okay, shut up. Seriously." Dean locked down the urge to grab hold of Sam and shake him, shove him up against the car door, like that would help anything, or change anything. He looked out the passenger window and pressed a hand to his mouth, gripped his thigh, trying to distract himself with the road signs, the pain in his knee. Three of them left, now, including Sam. How long did they have? A month? A week?

He was an idiot. He'd gone on day to day like this could last forever, and this whole time—

"Talk to me, man," Sam said, trying to talk him down.

Dean shot him a glare. "You're lucky I don't kick your ass right here."

Sam had sympathy written all over him, but it wasn't an apology. _That's why I can't,_ Sam had said years ago, when Dean wanted one last Christmas to remember. Dean had known it wasn't fair at the time, but he hadn't understood until this moment how much self-control Sam must have exerted to keep from punching him in the face at least a dozen times that year.

The light changed. Sam stepped on the gas. "So, where to, then?" he asked, looking like he would drive to the north pole, or Jupiter, if that's what Dean wanted. Emotion twisted deep inside Dean, his moorings coming loose in a quiet, fundamental way. It felt like déjà vu all over again, to those first few weeks after he'd made the deal for Sam's life. Sam had indulged him then, too. But this time, Dean was the one getting left behind.

"Bobby's," Dean said. The surprise registered on Sam's face, but he didn't argue. He got on the interstate and headed north.

* * *

  


It started to rain around the time they crossed into Arkansas. Just after seven, Sam pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of a diner outside Little Rock.

Neither of them spoke much over supper. A heavy silence hung over them like thunderheads, thick with Dean's anger and Sam's regret, and neither of them knew how to break it.

At the motel, Dean threw his duffel on the bed and retreated to the bathroom. Sam sat on the bed and tried to imagine the next few weeks. He was glad Dean wanted to go to Bobby's. Not just for himself—though he was grateful enough to get to see Bobby and Ellen one last time—but for Dean.

After that, he wanted to get Dean back home where he was needed, where he belonged. Julie's baby was due within the month, and Sam wanted Dean to be there. He knew Dean would need his family with him, to be able to lean on Julie and have Katie put her arms around him. To go back to his job, where the kids needed him and he made a difference.

But he wanted Dean to forgive him, too. He couldn't stand it if things ended like they were now. They'd barely said ten words to each other since Baton Rouge. They should have one last perfect day somewhere, the two of them—one last chance to get everything right. Maybe that was asking too much. Maybe it was the most selfish wish he'd had yet. But he couldn't help wanting it.

* * *

  


When Sam came out of the bathroom dressed for sleep, he found Dean sitting at the table staring at nothing. He looked more tired than Sam had seen him in memory.

It might have been a mistake. It might have been a lot of things. But what made him go to where Dean sat and reach out against his will, lay his hands on Dean's shoulders, was simple fact: he couldn't see Dean look like that and not go to him, not touch him. So many times in the past, he'd seen Dean hurting, seen him struggling to carry what he had to carry, and been helpless to do anything about it. He remembered that feeling too well. Whatever the cost might be for what they were to each other now, he couldn't be sorry if it meant they'd finally found a way to cross that no man's land.

Even so, he went carefully. If Dean was strong enough to resist the pull between them, then Sam wasn't going to push him.

The first touch of his hands on Dean's neck was hesitant, a question. He pressed the pads of his thumbs gently into the knots of muscle, feeling the tension strung taut in Dean's shoulders and all along his neck.

He stole a glance at Dean's face. Dean's eyes had closed; he didn't move, otherwise, but his head bowed slightly, surrendering to Sam's touch. He didn't say anything, didn't give any other sign of encouragement, so after a long moment, Sam reluctantly stopped.

He meant to let his hands fall, but they came to rest on Dean's shoulders.

Before he could step away, Dean reached for him and pulled him in by the belt loops. He still hadn't opened his eyes. Soundless, he tugged Sam close and turned his head, tucking his face in against Sam's stomach, one arm locked around Sam's hips. Sam's heart rate rocketed, his chest squeezing tight. The way Dean held on to him, hugging Sam fiercely to him like he was holding on for dear life—it was more than Sam knew how to take. It scared him. He braced himself, feet apart. His hand came up to rest at the back of Dean's head before he could stop it.

"Dean."

The muscles in Dean's shoulders bunched. Sam could feel the rigid tension in Dean's body, the anger coiling all through him, as if he hated feeling like this but didn't know how to stop. His face lay hot against Sam's belly, his breath spreading shivers in waves over Sam's skin.

Sam swept his thumb across Dean's temple. His mouth had gone dry with the bone-deep hunger for his brother that he'd lived with for what felt like most of his life, and he trembled with it in Dean's grasp. His dick curved out in a rigid, obvious line. It didn't care what promises he'd made to himself, or how bad Dean was hurting. It only knew the heat of Dean's breath and the tantalizing nearness of Dean's mouth, and Sam couldn't think any more past the flood of images that came as soon as he let that thought register.

Dean's fist clenched in the small of Sam's back. He broke away and reached for Sam's waistband before Sam knew what he planned. Then Sam's brain caught up with Dean's hands untying the string of his cotton pants, and desire imploded like a star, low and hot in his belly. He curled over Dean's shoulders, helpless with it. Dean knew. He knew, and he was going to—

In seconds, Dean had him free, Sam's cock aching already when it sprang into his brother's hand, but that was the last thing Dean did in a hurry. He held Sam's hips and bent his head, and Sam couldn't see his face any more when he angled Sam's dick up against his mouth and took a slow, deliberate taste.

The bolt of heat that stabbed through Sam made him gasp like he'd been cut. He braced a hand on Dean's shoulder because he wasn't sure he'd be able to stand up otherwise, not if Dean was going to touch him again with his tongue—and he did, licking him slow, teasing.

"Dean—" Sam begged, low and desperate, not even knowing what he asked for. Mercy, maybe. But Dean didn't show him any. Didn't stop, or take him deep, or do anything except hold Sam still and go on licking him in slow, deliberate stripes of heat. Like he could do this all day, if he had to. Like nothing in the world would make him go any faster, give Sam any more than this. "Dean, we can't," Sam got out, though it was the last thing he wanted to say. "Not—not without protection."

Dean looked up at him, his eyes hot. "When's the last time you got tested?"

Sam blushed. "Three weeks ago. When we were in Atlanta." He'd told himself that it was for Julie's sake. He'd told himself he wouldn't touch Dean again.

"And? Anything I should know about?" When Sam shook his head, Dean said, "Then we're good." He bent his head again and licked the pearl of fluid from Sam's leaking cock.

Sam couldn't protest any more. Not with Dean's mouth on him, his hands hot and steady around Sam's waist, the strong, tense curve of his neck warm under Sam's hands. Sam had fantasized about this for so long, the reality was impossible to deal with. Pretty soon he was going to be unable to stand, and it was hard to even care.

It was the wire-taut, fixed stillness of Dean's clenched body that he couldn't ignore, that got through to him when nothing else would have. Sam touched the back of his neck, rubbed the muscle there with his thumb. "Dean. Please."

Dean made a soft, choked sound. All his tense resistance gave way under that one gentle touch, the plea in Sam's voice that he'd never been proof against. "Just let me—" he got out, sounding as desperate as Sam felt.

Sam wanted Dean to suck him, wanted it more than he could think about without going half-crazy, but more than that, he needed them to be in this together. "Hey," he said, kneeling and taking Dean's face between his hands. "Hey. It's gonna be okay."

Dean gave a harsh, bitten-off laugh. "Okay." The word broke in his throat like a curse. He looked at Sam, his eyes bright and fierce. "You're kiddin' me, right?" he said bitterly, but when Sam curled a hand around his neck and pulled him in, he went.

"It will," Sam said, and rested his head against Dean's, holding on. Dean's hands came up, fingers curling harsh against Sam's ribs.

At last Sam kissed him again. He relearned the way their tongues slid against each other, the way deep, slow kisses made Dean come apart like so much cotton candy. Then Dean slid his hands into Sam's pants, grabbing his ass, and the hot, possessive grip made Sam choke back a moan.

"You gonna let me blow you, or what?" Dean asked, when Sam was shivering with it, so turned on just the words made his gut clench around the crippling pulse of near-orgasm. “Take that as a yes." He pulled Sam's head back, bit at his throat. "Come on, Sammy," he ordered, his voice harsh. "Let me see you."

Sam got shakily to his feet and held on to Dean's shoulders, needing the support now as Dean tugged his pants down and tasted the salt-slick fluid leaking all over Sam's dick. _Gonna kill me right here,_ Sam wanted to say, but his breath was locked up too tight for him to say anything, every nerve in his body aching for Dean's mouth. _Gonna die right now and be happy about it._

"Dean," was all he could manage out loud, a low, wrecked note in his voice that only made him ache worse; then Dean leaned down and took him in, wet mouth closing around Sam, one fist tight around the base. The fingers of his other hand curled into the heat between Sam's ass cheeks.

Sam gave a soft, desperate noise. Dean started to suck him in earnest, and he lost the ability to think. He didn't know how he was supposed to deal with this, what he was supposed to do. Dean sucked his cock, making low sounds and holding on to him like he loved doing it, like this was all he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Sam seriously thought he might shake himself apart. Liquid heat curled in his belly, between his legs. Everything Dean did felt good, made him flinch and groan and feel like he was dying of it, like it was his first time and every touch of Dean's tongue or his blunt, warm fingers threatened to get him there. All it would take was for him to get over the shock, and he'd be done for.

He wanted to get his hands on Dean and mess him up. He wanted the two of them stretched out together, making a mess of each other all night, making it last. The best he could do was clutch at the back of Dean's head, fingers buried in his soft, short hair. Dean looped his arm around Sam's hips and held on, took him as deep as he could.

"Oh, God, like that," Sam breathed as the helpless spiral of his own pleasure coiled deep in his belly, drew his balls up tight. He rocked forward in a deep thrust, then another, unable to stop himself. Dean's mouth was so hot. Sam had dreamed about this since he was old enough to know about it. He began to shiver. "I can't. I can't." The breath hitched in his chest. Then he curled over and started to come with a sob, gutted with pleasure and half-heartbroken that it was over so fast. Dean held on to him as his knees gave.

Dean made a noise. It sounded like relief, like he was the one who'd needed it so bad. Dean's hand was down his shorts, Sam realized. He was jerking himself off with rough, harsh strokes, and that was enough to make another sharp spasm pierce through Sam. He was still in the last shaky throes when Dean threw his head back, letting Sam go to finish himself off with a low, guttural cry.

Sam's went to his knees without thought, got his tongue on Dean to taste the hot slick as Dean came all over his own fist and Sam's face. Dean flinched and shuddered, and Sam got to watch him, the beautiful, wide-eyed, exposed look that came over him as he gave in to it.

Sam licked his lips, wiped come off his chin with the back of his hand. "Yeah," he whispered, still leaning on his brother for support. "Yeah, Dean."

Dean gave a short, sharp shake of his head. He bent forward and buried his face in Sam's shoulder, panting. Sam held him close as he rode out the last of it. The position was awkward and uncomfortable, and he wanted nothing more than to stay there until the world ended.

* * *

  


Sam went for a towel while Dean got himself over to the bed and stripped out of his boxer briefs. They were a lost cause, not unlike Dean himself.

He should lay Sam out for having the nerve to tell him anything was going to be okay. But Sam was his weak spot in every way that counted, always had been, and Dean didn't have it in him to stay angry with him—not when he could still taste Sam on his tongue. Not when he could still feel the way Sam had leaned into him, desperate and needy and wide open, saying Dean's name like it was the only word he knew. Dean had been so caught up in what he was doing, he hadn't realized how much he was getting off on it until Sam came in his mouth and he'd almost creamed himself without so much as a touch; the second he did get a hand down his shorts, it hadn't taken more than a few strokes to make him shoot like a porn star. It was ridiculous, was what it was.

Worse was the way he couldn't stop himself from tracking Sam when he came out of the bathroom; the gut-punch of anticipation he felt when Sam came toward him, his color high and his lips bitten red from trying to keep quiet.

Sam tossed the towel at him. Dean caught it, and cleaned himself up under the sheet with a couple of swipes. "Thanks."

Sam's blush deepened. "Sure," he said. He hesitated, then took half a step away like he'd thought better of coming over. Dean snaked a hand out and caught him at the wrist.

Sam froze, a look on his face Dean didn't know how to read. He looked like he'd taken a step out over empty air, a comical, Wile E. Coyote expression that made Dean simultaneously want to laugh and hold on tighter to keep him from falling.

"C'mere," Dean said, his voice rough. Before Sam could resist, Dean tugged him down. "Kinda fast, that last time," he said, his heart rate rocketing and his eyes on Sam's mouth. "Think we could try again?"

Sam licked his lips, and the sight made Dean's blood heat. "Yeah, we could. We could do that."

Dean grabbed hold of his arms and pulled Sam down on top of him, his thigh slipping in between Sam's. He felt Sam getting into it as they fit closer together, the hungry swell of Sam getting excited. A thrill ran low through his belly and chest.

Sam put his hands on either side of Dean's hips, then leaned in and kissed him, deep and thoroughly and slow, until Dean was breathing unsteadily. He liked Sam taking over his mouth like that way too much. He still felt relaxed from his orgasm, but could tell it was just gonna be that much better this time. It'd been a while since he'd felt this ready to go so soon, but he was hungry for Sam, like he'd been waiting for this, starving on a desert island somewhere and hadn't eaten in weeks, maybe his whole life.

"Still can't believe you want this," Sam confessed, shifting to lie along Dean's good side, his face hot against Dean's throat. He rolled his hips, and Dean felt the solid pressure of Sam's erection against his thigh. Sam nuzzled at his neck, then bit him gently. It made all kinds of crazy heat shiver through him.

"Makes two of us," Dean admitted. He went after Sam's mouth and licked inside, biting at his lips. He'd never had such a thing for making out, before, but doing this with Sam gave him a jolt every time. Only now, his need was all tied up with the awful feeling he had that this might be the last time.

His chest ached. They were coming to the end of the road, and maybe they were doing this because Sam was gonna die and it wouldn't matter any more, but that didn't make him want it any less. It'd been like this the first time, too. Like he could only let himself have this if he was on the verge of losing it. Here he was on his back for Sam, and all he wanted was to do this again and again until they died of old age.

He must have given himself away. Sam pulled back, his weight and heat all along Dean's side. Dean felt excruciatingly naked in the face of that look. "Dean—"

"Let's not, okay?" His voice broke on it.

"Sure," Sam said after a long moment. "Okay." And he stripped the sheet away, pushing himself between Dean's thighs.

They did it like that, Sam on top, his arms hooked under Dean's legs. His warm skin felt good on Dean's sore knee, and he was careful, so careful, like Dean would break; he fucked himself in long strokes between Dean's thighs, sliding and teasing their cocks together with painfully slow thrusts until they were both leaking like crazy, leaving slippery streaks on each other's skin. When Dean thought he couldn't take any more, Sam bent his head and kissed Dean's cock, then took him in, sucking him gently and tonguing under the head with slow, careful thoroughness.

It reduced Dean to choked swearing. He stared wide-eyed at Sam, at his head moving between Dean's thighs, the wide expanse of his shoulders and his arms cradling Dean's legs, long fingers splayed out against Dean's hips. He couldn't believe they were really doing this. How he'd failed to see the truth all those years.

Sam gave a gentle suck, tongue right where Dean needed it. Dean came, helpless and shaking; he was still cursing and panting out his release when Sam slicked himself in it and ground down with short, frantic thrusts. "Gonna mess me up?" Dean bit out, a harsh whisper. "Come all over me?" Sam nodded and gasped, then gave a low groan and curled his body over Dean's. A second later, he was doing just that, with a choked plea that sounded like Dean's name. He spilled hot and slick against Dean's belly and cock and balls, a sensation both dirty and gut-wrenchingly erotic. Dean laced his fingers in Sam's hair and held him through it, both of them trembling.

When it was over, Sam curled up beside him, looking at Dean like he couldn't get enough of him. He looked more at peace than Dean could remember seeing him in years, a deep and steady certainty in his face he couldn't have hidden if he wanted to. It twisted in Dean's chest. Nowhere in any dream he'd ever had of keeping Sam close to him had he imagined this, but he couldn't help how right it felt.

There had to be a way, he thought, his arm tightening of its own accord. There had to.

* * *

  


"Hey, Sammy."

"What?" Sam asked, half asleep with his face mashed against Dean's shoulder. When Dean didn't immediately answer, Sam sighed and pushed himself up on one elbow. He'd thought Dean would be too exhausted to stay awake, but apparently he'd thought wrong.

"What happened last night," Dean began. "With the poltergeist." At Sam's expression, he held up a hand. "Now, hold on. It's not like you had a choice. I know that. That's not what I'm saying."

"Then what?"

Dean shifted to get a better look at him. "What if you could use your mojo to change things?"

Sam frowned. "Change things how?"

"I'm just saying, if you were juiced enough."

Sam felt the blood drain out of his face. He sat up, his back rigid. "You don't mean that."

"Why not? We should at least talk about it."

"Dean. I can't go down that road again. You know that."

"You're stronger now," Dean said, like he was pleading with Sam to make it true. "I know you are."

Sam wanted to believe him, but he knew better. He shook his head. "You remember what it was like. What _I_ was like. I swore, never again. So did you, remember? We messed with the order of things. I don't think we get another chance. It's the kind of miracle you only get once. So, no. I can't. I'm sorry."

They stared at each other for a minute, until Dean couldn't look at him any more, and sat up on the edge of the bed. He clenched his fists. "Goddammit," he swore.

Sam leaned in, head curved down over Dean's shoulder as if they were kids telling secrets. "It'll be different this time. It's not just us any more." You won't be alone, he wanted to say, but he knew Dean wouldn't be able to hear that, not now. But maybe this time, he thought, Dean would be able to let go. He'd gotten out, he had a family—and if it hadn't been for Sam, maybe he would have stayed out for good.

Dean pulled away, unable to look at him, but Sam knew Dean felt it, too. Katie and Julie, and the baby on the way, the life he'd made with them—it was _his_ life, his home, not just an escape from hunting. Maybe this time, Dean would be able to let him go.

"Dean, I'm sorry."

"Don't. Just, don't." Dean hunched his shoulders, his hands drawn into fists. "I don't get it. Why can't we have something for ourselves, huh? Why can't we." He sounded like he was choking on it.

"Yeah," Sam said, the two of them leaning close, not touching.

* * *

  


Dean watched Sam get up, watched him disappear naked into the bathroom and listened to the water run, feeling like he was about a thousand years old. He hadn't realized until he said it out loud and Sam shot him down that this was the hope he'd been holding on to the whole time. His last-ditch miracle. But Sam was right.

He should call Jules, he thought then. He'd promised to call every day, and it'd been more than two, but she'd see through him in a minute. Hearing her talk about Katie, or the baby, would only remind him of all the reasons why he had to sit here and take it, why he had to keep going, even if the thought of it felt like the emptiest, bitterest thing in the world. Sam was right, but it was so goddamned unfair.

Sam came back dressed for sleep with his face scrubbed, his hair wet, and a hot washcloth that Dean sat still for despite the tense denial that coiled in his stomach.

He didn't have it in him to protest when Sam pulled the covers back and climbed into bed with him, though it felt weirder and more dangerous than the sex itself. He'd done things with Sam that made him flush hot with guilt and embarrassment if he thought about them—but having Sam in his bed, like this was something they could do, something he could have, threatened to wreck what semblance of self-control he had left.

Dean yanked at the covers and turned over, trying to get comfortable. Sam took up two thirds of the bed, and Dean wasn't a small guy. Besides, what the fuck were they supposed to do, cuddle and spoon together like this was somehow normal? Like it could fix anything? His knee ached and throbbed. There was no way in hell he'd be able to sleep like this, he knew, but he didn't have it in him to tell Sam to back off, not when all he wanted was to grab on to Sam and never let go.

Sam sighed and shifted, wrapping himself around Dean, arms and legs finding places to fit, one arm slung heavy over Dean's waist. He rested his head against Dean's and breathed him in. Dean clenched his eyes shut. If he could have cried, he would have. Their whole lives, he thought. All those lost years, when Sam tried to run away from how he felt, tried to cut himself off, push Dean away, and Dean let him, Dean fucking let him. He'd thought he knew Sam so well, but he'd been blind to the goddamned obvious.

Sam curved his body so there was a little space between them and rubbed circles into Dean's tense back.

"Knock it off," Dean warned him.

Sam's voice came soft, amusement and affection thick in it. "Make me."

"Don't think I won't."

Sam ignored him. Against his will, Dean felt himself start to relax. Heat prickled behind his eyes, tight in his throat, and he drew a deep, steadying breath to control it. His heart hurt so much he thought he might be having a heart attack, only in slow motion.

"Let's go somewhere," Sam said after a while, in a low, quiet voice like when they were kids falling asleep in the same bed. "You and me."

"Like where?" Dean asked, starting to sink past the upper levels of waking despite himself. Sam's thumb found a particularly bad knot and pressed into it, sending gentle waves of pleasure along Dean's spine.

"After Bobby's. We'll go somewhere. Doesn't matter where. We'll find a lake, or a beach, someplace we can stick our feet in the water. Feel the sun on our faces. Bottle of Blue Label, someplace we can grill up a couple steaks, sleep out by the stars if we want?"

"Sounds good," Dean allowed. Maybe this was a dream, he thought. Maybe all of it was. And if it was a dream, then anything was possible. "Sounds real good, Sammy."

"It's a plan, then," Sam murmured, his lips warm against the back of Dean's neck.

Dean hadn't thought he could sleep, but he wasn't proof against the heat of Sam's body, the steady rhythm of his breathing, the gentle pressure of his long-fingered hands finding all Dean's nerve points. Sleep came.

The last thing that went through his head was a prayer. He'd never seen an angel, never really believed in Heaven, but if he'd ever wished he could, it was now.

* * *

  


In the dream, Dean was twelve years old. He knew it was a dream even as it was happening. It didn't help.

 _Shoot it, Dean! You shoot it in the heart right now!_ his dad told him, voice like thunder, and Dean pressed himself back against the wall, trying to get a line on the shape looming in the dark. It stood over his little brother with its mouth open and a terrible, gut-wrenching sound of ecstasy that made Dean's skin crawl, his stomach try to heave itself out of his throat. The gun weighed heavy, the stock of it notched into his shoulder the way his dad taught him, but he couldn't pull the trigger because he couldn't see anything. He couldn't see where Sam was, not clearly, not with that thing in the way and only the sliver of a moon to see by. But he had to do something. It was killing Sammy, killing him right in front of Dean and if he didn't pull the trigger, it would be too late.

 _Shoot the fucking thing,_ Dean told his twelve-year-old self, panic clawing its way into his chest. _Can't you see it's killing him?_

 _He tastes like sunshine,_ the thing said, crooning over its prey. _He tastes better than all of them put together, doesn't he, Dean-o?_ And it looked right at him, its eyes gleaming yellow. Residue glistened on its slimy, twisted black lips like the dust off a butterfly's wings, gold and shimmering. That was Sam, Dean thought, and a low moan of terror lodged in his throat. That was Sam it had all over its mouth, the essence of him it was licking up like candy. Soon there'd be nothing left.

"You keep your filthy hands off him," Dean told it, his younger self's high, thin voice sounding small and pathetic, no threat at all. "You let him go. He's mine. He's mine, and you can't have him!"

 _Should have thought of that sooner,_ the thing said, and laughed. _Oh, kiddo, if you could only see the look on your face._

Dean opened his eyes with a choked gasp. He lay still, staring into the dark, listening.

Sam had shifted away in his sleep, turning on his back, but he still pressed all along Dean's side. Dean turned to look at him by the faint light that bled past the edge of the curtain. He was out, breathing deep and even, one hand folded over his stomach.

Something had woken Dean. Not the nightmare—something else. So if not Sam, then what?

A glance at the clock told him it was 1:19 a.m. He got up, doing his best to move silently. Tentative, he put weight on his bad knee; to his relief, it held. He glanced again at Sam, then slid his gun out of his duffel and opened the door.

The distant, low rumble of the semis played counterpoint to the heavy, fast beat of Dean's heart. He let the door close quietly and stood two feet in front of it, gun held low, head swiveling as he scanned the motor court for anything out of place. His car gleamed, sleek and solid. The lights in the parking lot burned steady. Nobody and nothing moved.

Dean frowned. He moved a few steps forward and scanned the parking lot again; _nothing_ was moving, not a whisper of wind, not a moth, nothing. He limped a few more steps from the door. It was July in Arkansas; there should have been cicadas, crickets, something. But other than the far-off sound of the highway, the night had gone dead silent and still.

 _Sam,_ he thought, and it slid into his belly like cold steel. He turned back, pulse skipping and all the hair on his arms standing up.

The Trickster was there, leaning up against the door to their room with his arms crossed, his familiar smirk firmly in place as he watched Dean react. The number on the door had changed to a big, elaborate 13 carved into the middle of a garish red wooden heart.

"Hey there, Dean-o," he said, eyes sparkling in delight as Dean leveled the gun at him. He raised his eyebrows. "Whatcha gonna do with that?"

Son of a bitch was between Dean and his brother, and that excruciating fact came home to rest in the pit of Dean's stomach. He lowered the gun, though it made him feel better to keep it cocked, useless as it was.

"What the hell do you want?" he demanded.

"Oh, _ouch._ That's gratitude, for you. Thought you were looking for me."

Dean gave a sharp laugh. "Not in this lifetime."

The Trickster's smirk widened. "My mistake. I'll see you, then." He pushed himself off the doorjamb and raised a hand, finger and thumb poised like he was gonna snap them and disappear.

Dean's gut tightened. "Wait," he said, remembering with a sinking feeling that not only did they owe him a whole lot of lives and pretty much the continued existence of the world as they knew it, but the guy's powers were virtually unlimited. Dean held up a placating hand and thumbed the safety back on his gun. "Wait. Please." He closed the distance between them, keeping his hand raised like he was trying not to spook a horse. "What do you want?"

The Trickster gave him a look like Dean was the most fun he'd had in two or three lifetimes. "Who said I want anything from you?"

"You want something. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here."

The Trickster shrugged, laugh-lines deepening. "Maybe I just like seeing you beside yourself over baby bro. Kind of like a car wreck. Hard to look away, know what I mean?"

"Can you help him or not?" Dean made himself ask, terror and hope beating fast at his throat.

"Who, Sam? He doesn't need my help. Well, not yet, anyway." The Trickster ambled closer with that infuriating, amused swagger; Dean circled a couple of steps closer to the door, knowing he was pathetically obvious.

"But you can, right? Warp reality, or whatever it is you do. You've done it before."

"And look how that turned out," the Trickster sing-songed. "Dean, Dean, Dean. When are you gonna learn? You're like a dog who's been kicked so many times, he doesn't know who his friends are any more. I'm doing you a favor. Not the first time, I might add." At Dean's look, he changed tactics, looking Dean up and down. "Just look at you. Driving all over hell's half acre trying to buy a miracle, acting like the world owes you for killing a few demons. You didn't think it came without a price, did you? What we did?" His face darkened. "What Sam did?"

They were circling each other, now, a few feet apart. Dean's fingers itched for a wooden stake, even though he doubted it would do a damn thing except make him feel better.

"He paid. He paid in fucking spades, you son of a bitch. We both did." What little hope he'd held up till now—that Sam was somehow exempt from this thing—was fading fast.

The Trickster sighed. "Fair enough. But your brother's right, you know. Natural order, blah, blah, blah. Everything in the universe has to fit into the whole, or things get out of whack. Everything has a balance point, and what we did, it rocked the boat in a big, bad way."

Dean realized that in his own irritating way, the Trickster was trying to tell him something. "So, what are you saying? That it's Fate or some crap like that, what's happening to Sam? That it's some kind of karmic payback?"

"I'm saying the Age of Demons is a thing of the past, and it's a brave new world out there, thanks to you and your brother. We tipped the board. Nobody saw that coming. Now a whole host of new players are starting to gather their forces, starting to make plans, and all that untapped power, nowhere to go?" He shivered. "I gotta say, it's enough to make me all tingly."

Dean frowned, not liking the sound of that. "What about Sam? How's he fit in?"

"You tell me. You're the one screwing him." He laughed, like it was the best joke he'd heard all year; Dean's face flamed, but the Trickster waved a dismissive hand. "Nah, I shouldn't joke—it's all fun and games until somebody sells his soul, ain't that right? I let you get too desperate, who knows what you'll do. You two are a menace."

"Takes one to know one, I guess." Dean struggled to keep hold of his anger, his gut churning. The smug son of a bitch was treading where he didn't belong.

The Trickster raised his hands. "Come on, man, I'm just yankin' your chain. You two are better than a chocolate sundae with all the fixin's. World wouldn't be the same without you Winchesters. I couldn't have dreamed you up if I tried. Gotta tell you," he confessed, "I'd hate to lose either one of you."

Dean stood still, then, his body stiff and the breath locked up in his chest. "What do I have to do?"

The Trickster scoffed. "Try doing your job, why don't you? But you'd better do it fast." He looked at Dean sidelong, and sang in a soft, melodious voice, " _Four little, three little, two little psychics—_ " and then he stepped in close, with sudden menace that touched off all Dean's defensive instincts. "Time's almost up, my friend. You keep missing the obvious, you're gonna find yourself short a little brother, and I know how much you hate that." Dean's nostrils flared, and he gripped his gun tighter. The Trickster gave him a hard look, too far inside Dean's personal space for comfort. "Get it together, Dean-o. You used to be good at this, remember?"

Before Dean could react, he'd vanished like he'd never existed.

Dean woke with a start, for real this time, stomach muscles clenched and his heart rate through the roof. He sat up.

It was daylight out. Bright sunshine peeked at the edges of the curtain; the clock read 7:49.

His eyes fell on Sam, sleeping peacefully beside him. Sam's chest rose and fell, a deep, even rhythm that did more than anything else could have to slow the frantic racing of Dean's heart.

Dean let his gaze roam over his brother. In his sleep, Sam had taken over most of the bed. His hair was a mess, curls turned every which way around his ears. The sheet had slid down to his hips, and his white v-neck T-shirt had ridden up, exposing his belly, pale and taut. Dean wanted him with a pure, straightforward desire that sang straight through him, a note struck deep at the heart of him that he knew would never be assuaged.

It wasn't physical. Sam was easy enough on the eyes, and Dean wasn't dumb enough to think he hadn't always been at least a little bit on the queer side, but it wasn't about that. His hunger to keep Sam for himself had been written into his bones long ago, and it had only taken Sam turning the key and opening the door for him to see what had been right there in front of him. For all the desperate love he'd always felt for Sam, all his weird, embarrassingly intense feelings about his brother to make perfect sense.

Sam woke up at last between one breath and the next. He rubbed sleepily at one eye. "Hey," he said, voice rough.

"Hey," Dean said. But it came out as choked as he felt.

Sam frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Nothin'. Go back to sleep."

Sam pushed himself to one elbow, blinking. "Yeah, try that on someone who doesn't know you. Come on. What is it?"

Dean let out a sigh, and wiped his hands over his face. He swung his legs out of bed and sat up on the edge, elbows on knees and his head in his hands, his back to Sam. "You're not gonna like it."

Sam sat up. "Tell me."

Dean drew a deep breath and let it out; no help for it. He glanced back over his shoulder. "Got a visit from the Trickster," he said.

"What?" Sam's voice rose a few notes.

Dean grimaced. He pushed himself to his feet, testing his knee; it was stiff, but held, barely. He moved away from the bed, trying to loosen it up and convince it to support his weight.

"Dean," Sam said darkly.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna tell you. Hold your horses."

"Why, so you can figure out how much of the truth I need to hear?"

Dean gave him a sharp look. "Jeez, paranoid much? You know how he is. Everything's a big joke. It's not like he can ever say anything straight out."

Sam swept the sheet back and swung his feet to the floor, leaning forward. "Dean, you can't trust him. You know that. I don't care if he did help us. That doesn't mean he's on our side."

Dean nodded, as much to appease Sam as anything. Sam had never been what you'd call rational when it came to the Trickster. After what had happened in Florida, he tended to get a little nuts whenever the subject came up. "Okay, well, first of all, we're not going home."

He watched Sam digest that, his face twitching with that fatalistic look Dean hated. "Dean," he began.

"No." Dean cut him off. "No arguments. This isn't over, Sam. We're not gonna give up and start planning our goddamned goodbye speeches. Ain't happening."

"That's not what I was doing."

"No? Sure sounded like it to me."

Sam tried to hold his gaze, but couldn't deny it. The way he looked down at his hands, guilty, set off a deep anger in Dean. He'd almost thrown in the towel last night. They both had. That was why the Trickster had shown up, and it pissed Dean off that he'd needed that asshole to tell him not to give up on Sam.

Sam stood up. "Tell me what he said," he ordered, voice tight.

Dean dug in his bag, pulling out his last pair of clean underwear. "He said we're missing the obvious, is what. That there's something out there we should be hunting. 'Do your job,' he told me." He grabbed his jeans and sat down on the other bed to get dressed.

"And let me guess, he didn't tell you anything that would actually help us figure out what that is." Dean gave a short, humorless laugh, and Sam's expression darkened. "Right, because there's no possibility at all that he was telling you what you wanted to hear just to mess with you. Jesus, Dean."

"He's messing with us, sure, but he's also trying to save your ass, so let's keep our eyes on the prize, here, Sammy." At Sam's disbelieving look, Dean stopped with one leg in his pants. "Look, I get why you hate him. I do. He drives me nuts, too, but that don't mean I'm gonna blow off everything he says."

"So, what are we supposed to do? We've been looking for a month, and we haven't found one solid lead to go on."

Dean went back to pulling on his jeans.

"Dean." When Dean still didn't answer him, Sam tensed. "Tell me you're not thinking what I think you're thinking."

"Somebody down there's got to know something."

"We are not summoning a demon. We're not." Dean gave him a hard look, but Sam didn't back down. "How are we even supposed to know which demon to call? Azazel's _dead,_ remember?"

"Yeah, but if we know anything, it's that this whole thing's got his fingerprints all over it. It's worth a shot."

Sam stared at him. "You've lost your mind, you know that?"

"Dude, come on. I'm not suggesting we start summoning random demons. We do this smart." He stood up, taking a step toward Sam, trying to get him to see reason. "We get Bobby in on it, we hit the books, whatever it takes, and we get our hands on whatever piece of crap wannabe down there can tell us what we need to know. Then we force-feed it freaking holy water until it pukes up something we can use."

"Dean."

For a second, Dean thought Sam was going to argue with him some more, and he took a breath, ready to override him until he shut the hell up and listened.

But Sam had gone pale, his gaze distracted. As Dean watched, he took a small, aborted step. Then he made a wrenching sound and clutched at his head. A second later, he folded in on himself like he'd taken a hit, his knees giving way in slow motion.

Dean moved before he knew what he was doing. Sam was maybe ten feet away; Dean crossed the space like it was nothing, and had his hands on Sam's arms before Sam's knees hit the carpet. Dean's own knee gave sickeningly under their combined weight, but he didn't feel it. Terror rolled through him in waves. He couldn't spare attention for anything except Sam, who was dead weight for two long seconds, then made a choking sound and started to convulse.

"Sam!" Sam went down, his body curling in on itself. "C'mon, man, stay with me, okay? Stay with me." He lowered Sam to the floor and tried to hold him still, but the convulsions jerked him out of Dean's grasp. Dean put his hands on either side of Sam's face, trying to see his eyes; Sam's face flushed hot to the touch, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he made the choking noise again, worse this time. Blood welled over his lips, sudden and shockingly red against his pale skin. He'd bitten his tongue.

Dean struggled to get him on his side so he wouldn't choke on it. Sam's eyes fluttered. It seemed like the vision went on and on, longer than Dean remembered them usually lasting. He stroked Sam's hair back from his face. Sam had gone so hot to the touch, it felt like the vision was burning itself through him. His long hands curled inward, drawn in to his chest like he was trying to get away from the pain. "Sammy, talk to me, huh? Please."

Then Sam's eyes closed, and he went slack. His eyelids fluttered a few more times, then stopped.

A soft, breathless sob of desperation escaped Dean, his hands pressed helplessly against Sam's face. "No. No, no, no, no, not now. Not now, Sammy. C'mon, dammit. Don't do this to me." He pushed Sam's hair back again and lifted one eyelid with his thumb, trying to see if there was any response. Nothing. He looked comatose. He looked—

Dean's chest seized up. He pressed unsteady fingers to Sam's throat, but he was shaking too hard to feel a pulse, if there was one. He leaned forward and laid his face against Sam's chest, his panic so profound that for a second he was sure it was already over, that it hadn't been a vision at all, that there would be neither heartbeat nor breath to find, and the ultimate joke would be on him.

"No." He closed his eyes and prayed _please, no,_ to anyone who would listen. _I can't. I can't._

Then Sam's chest rose slightly, and Dean did feel his heartbeat, faint, but there. His own chest let go and he heaved a breath, so desperately grateful that for a second he couldn't do anything but stay there with his face pressed to his brother's chest, relief crashing through him in a crushing wave. _Oh, God, thank you. Thank God._

When he could, he sat back, feeling the muted agony in his knee for the first time. It only mattered because it meant there was no way in hell he was getting Sam out to the car by himself.

He checked Sam again out of the base necessity to keep his hands on his brother, to make sure he was still breathing. Blood smeared Sam's lips, and Dean wiped it away with the back of his fingers. A trickle escaped Sam's nose, too, and Dean's heart kicked at that. He shook Sam gently. "Hey, Sammy. Hey." But Sam was still unresponsive, and Dean knew there was no help for it.

He left Sam lying on his side and half-lurched, half-dragged himself to his phone. It took him three tries to dial 911. His voice sounded like a stranger's as he told the operator where he was and what had happened, that he needed an ambulance right now. "Please hurry," he said at the end, and then he went to Sam and sat on the floor to wait with him, keeping his fingers pressed to the faint pulse at Sam's wrist and trying for all he was worth not to go out of his mind.

* * *

  


At the ER, Dean watched a team of nurses taking blood and getting Sam hooked up to monitors and tubes. He tried his best to answer a barrage of questions from a short, round, Filipino woman in glasses and bright blue scrubs. Did Sam have a history of seizures? What about epilepsy—any history in their family? Stroke? Aneurysm? Dean answered yes to that one, with no idea if it was true.

"Has Sam ever mentioned having severe headaches?" she asked.

Dean's stomach tightened. "Yes. Sometimes."

"What kind of headaches?"

"Migraines, I guess?"

"Do you know when they started?"

"About eight or nine years ago. Maybe more."

She wrote on her chart. "And how often would you say?"

"I don't know. He doesn't always tell me." The guy who seemed to be in charge of the team working on Sam suddenly gave an order, and they rushed Sam's stretcher past him without warning. Dean started up from his plastic chair, but the nurse was in his way. "Hey, where are they taking him?"

"It's okay," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "They're just taking him to get a CT scan. It's standard procedure. They'll be back soon." Dean swallowed back the spike of panic. "Trust me, he's in good hands. Now, let's finish these up, all right? Has he mentioned any odd smells?"

She went on like that, Dean answering in monosyllables and trying not to let himself think about how long Sam had been out, or what might be happening. _Does he take any prescription medication? Drug use? Did he say there was anything different about this headache this time? Any symptoms he normally does not experience with his usual migraines? Has he complained of a stiff neck recently? Had any difficulty walking? How about with speech? Double or blurred vision? Nausea? Vomiting? Confusion, or changes in his personality?_

When he'd finally finished answering her questions, he said, "Please, I need to know what's happening with my brother."

"They'll be back in a minute, and the doctor will go over his scans. They'll let you know as soon as they know something. Right now, the best thing you can do for Sam is stay out of their way. Let's go get you checked in, so we can look at that knee."

Dean didn't want to go anywhere, but he relented when she told him they could treat him in Sam's room. The nurse insisted on giving him a damn wheelchair. In the interests of expedience, he didn't fight her, but he couldn't sit still and do nothing, not when he didn't know where Sam was, or what was happening.

While he waited, he called Jules from the hallway, where he could still see the treatment area in case they brought Sam back. "Hey," she said when she picked up.

Dean swallowed. "Hey."

"Oh, babe. What happened?"

"Sam's—" He had to stop. He hunched forward and leaned his forehead against his fist. Eyes closed, he squeezed his thumb hard enough to hurt. "We're at the hospital in Little Rock."

"Is he—how is he?"

"Hell if I know. They won't tell me anything. They're running tests."

"Okay, hey. Take a deep breath, and tell me what happened."

"We just, one minute we were standing there talking, and the next, he went down like a ton of bricks. He started convulsing, and then he stopped, and—and I don't know what to do." He choked to a halt, every word feeling like a razor blade, like it cost him something vital to get out. "He won't wake up."

"Baby, listen to me. You did the right thing. I know this is hard, but you gotta stay calm right now, okay? Don't freak out until you know something. The doctors know what they're doing. Let them do their jobs, and you talk to me, okay?"

"Okay," Dean choked. His heart beat a steady, painful rhythm against his chest. He forced himself to do what she'd told him to, and took a deep breath.

"Mr. Winchester?" Dean opened his eyes and looked up. One of the nurses stood there. "Your brother's awake."

For a second, Dean couldn't say anything. The relief felt like the rollercoaster feeling of weightlessness after an endless climb. "Thanks. Thank you." Belatedly, he remembered Jules. "Babe, he's awake. I gotta go."

"Call me soon as you can."

"I will."

* * *

  


On the back porch, Julie rubbed absently at her stomach. She'd always known Dean would be a basket case if anything happened to Sam, but she'd never heard him so terrified before. She wished desperately that she could be there right now to give him somebody to lean on, if nothing else.

Things had never been easy with Dean, but she'd known what she was getting into. At least, she'd thought she had. She and Ella, her sister, had been the last ones standing in their family, too, and when Ella was killed, there'd been a couple of months where all Julie wanted to do was lie down and die.

That must've been what it was like for Dean and Sam all their lives, she thought. They said soldiers suffered post-traumatic stress from the day in, day out uncertainty of never knowing whether you or the guy standing next to you would bite it. They'd been living that way since Dean was four years old, and for most of that time they'd had only each other. For them, there was no such thing as a furlough.

It came home to her for the first time that Dean might not make it, if Sam didn't.

She stared at the phone, then went upstairs to pack a bag for her and for Katie, just in case. Maybe she couldn't fly, but she could get there in two or three days by car if she had to.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam lay on a half-raised, padded stretcher, looking wan and tired beneath the oxygen mask they'd given him. His eyes tracked to Dean, and Dean came stupidly close to a mortifying breakdown in front of the doctor and half a dozen hospital workers. He kept it together by the skin of his teeth, and managed a smile.

"Hey, Sammy." He kept his hands at his sides, though the need to touch him was strong.

Sam gave him a slow blink of acknowledgment. He looked like himself, though exhausted. But he seemed aware, like he knew who Dean was and where they were.

"How is he?" Dean asked the ER doc—an Indian guy Dean thought might be younger than he was. His badge said his last name was Malik.

"The CT scan was negative. No sign of stroke that we could detect, no bleeding or tumors. We've also ruled out heart attack and hypoglycemia."

"That's good, right?"

The doctor nodded, though his manner was cautious. "Near as we can tell, Sam had a prolonged seizure. We'll need some time to be certain what kind of an event this was. I recommend we keep a close eye on Sam for the next few hours, and administer Dilantin. If it was a seizure, his body and brain need time to recover. These kinds of events happen more often if a patient is overtired, or under stress. A patient Sam's age, suffering a seizure of this severity for the first time, we need to investigate the possible primary causes. I've called a neurologist. We'll need to get an EEG as soon as possible."

"Why's he on oxygen? Is that normal?"

"When Sam regained consciousness, he was confused and disoriented. He also exhibited some signs of weakness and trouble with his vision. We usually give oxygen until the patient is fully awake and alert."

Dean looked at Sam, who seemed to be following the discussion with some effort. "So, what's next?" he asked, wishing he could take the mask off and hear Sam say something.

"I've ordered a lumbar puncture test. A CT scan will usually show any damage to the brain. But the L.P. is another test we sometimes perform if the scan is negative. It will detect infection, to tell us whether or not we can rule out meningitis or encephalitis, both of which can be potentially life-threatening. It can also detect blood in the cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, which in very rare cases of aneurysm may not show up on the initial scan."

"And then you'd know for sure what happened?" Dean asked.

"If there are signs of infection or bleeding in Sam's brain, the L.P. should tell us that." Malik looked at Sam. "I do have to mention that a lumbar puncture can be extremely painful for some people, and in rare cases it can cause severe headaches that can last for a while afterwards. We try to keep the patient still, flat on their backs for an hour or more after the test. Sometimes that helps. But such complications are rare."

"Not loving the sound of that," Dean said. "How important is this test?"

"If it is an infection, we need to get him on antibiotics as soon as possible. The faster we can make a diagnosis, the faster we can begin treatment."

Dean knew antibiotics weren't the answer. And even if it was an aneurysm, and this test could help them find it, what were the odds that they could do anything to stop it?

"Can I get a minute with my brother, Doc?" he asked. A flicker of impatience registered in the doctor's face, but he nodded and left the room.

The last of the nurses followed. In a minute, Sam and Dean were alone, or what passed for it in the corner of the ER. Sam fumbled at the oxygen mask, and Dean helped him lift it off.

"Hey." Sam's voice came thick, his tongue swollen. Dean saw him swallow with effort.

"They probably got this on you for a reason," Dean told him. But it did him good to hear Sam's voice, even rough and weak as it was.

"I'll put it back. Just need to talk to you."

Dean's heart squeezed. He wanted to reach out, but didn't trust himself to without making a scene. He rested one fist on the bed, knuckles pressed against Sam's shoulder. "You scared the crap out of me, dude. Not cool."

"Yeah. M'sorry about that."

"How you feeling?"

"Fine? Kind of wiped out. Don't remember much." It wasn't just his bitten tongue that made him slur the words, Dean realized. His eyes seemed to want to slide sideways, too, in a way Dean didn't like.

"Yeah, well, that's probably normal. You look like crap, though," Dean told him, kneejerk reaction to the way it made him feel, seeing Sam laid out in a place like this, his brain misfiring like he'd blown a circuit somewhere.

Sam flipped him off halfheartedly, but otherwise ignored that. "Jim Patterson," he said, concentrating to get the name right. "In Miami."

"So it was a vision," Dean said, his voice low. Two of them in two days, he was thinking. Not fair, goddammit. They needed more time.

Sam nodded. He grimaced, and looked over at the cup of ice water the nurses had left. Dean picked it up and held it for him, watching as he sucked a piece of ice in, held it on his tongue and let it melt. Even that seemed to wear him out; he turned his face aside and closed his eyes for a minute.

"So?" Sam asked at last, the words coming with some effort. "What do you think?"

"About the tests?" Dean didn't like the idea of sticking around a hospital on purpose, that went without saying. The doctor had said complications were an outside chance, but if Sam were incapacitated, they couldn't get back on the road, and everything in Dean rebelled at the idea of leaving his brother in this place. The Trickster had made it clear that they didn't have time to waste. "Maybe we should give it a shot," he said anyway, feeling out of his depth.

Sam shook his head. "Hospital's not the answer. You know that." He spoke only a little more slowly than normal, but the difference still set Dean on edge.

"Probably not, but if we check you out of here, and it turns out there's something they coulda done—"

"Not real likely, is it?"

Dean had to admit, he didn't have much faith that a doctor could help Sam, and the thought of giving them the okay to put a needle in his brother's spine gave him the hair-raising, shivering kind of creeps. Draining fluid away from the brain sounded scary as hell to him, and messing with Sam's head, in the literal or figurative sense, was pretty much the last thing he wanted to let anybody do right now. Not to mention, Dean didn't like the sound of anything that might cause Sam that much pain.

Sam looked exhausted. He'd closed his eyes, like the light was hurting him. Dean reached out and laid a hand on Sam's forehead, relieved to feel he wasn't fever hot any more. At his touch, Sam curled a hand around the railing of the bed, a breath escaping him.

Dean eased the oxygen mask back over his mouth and nose. "Get some rest, Sammy. We'll talk about it some more when you wake up."

It wasn't long before Sam was out, breathing deep and even under his hand. Dean watched him sleep for a while, the reassuring, low, steady beep of the monitors hypnotic. Averted panic pressed against Dean's senses, all his nerves on edge with no way to express it. He hated having to make these kinds of decisions. Give him an angry spirit or a werewolf or a pissed-off rugaru, and he was fine, but hospitals and doctors scared the crap out of him.

He drew a deep breath and let it out. No help for it. Knowing he was about to make himself very unpopular, Dean went to tell the doctor thanks, but no thanks. He hoped like hell he was doing the right thing.

* * *

It took some doing to convince Malik that Dean meant what he said, and didn't plan on letting him run the test he wanted to. The guy had been nice enough to start, but by the time Dean signed the release forms absolving the doctor and the hospital of all responsibility, Malik was barely civil. "A hospital is not a hotel," he said by way of a parting shot. "If you don't want to let me do my job, all I can say is that I sincerely wish the best for your brother." The subtext was clear: considering you're doing your best to kill him.

When it was done, Dean had to get out of there for a minute. It was early afternoon. He hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the previous night, and seeing Sam have to struggle to find the right words had shaken him. He kept thinking about the last few years, about how many times Sam's visions had driven him to his knees with pain, or made him black out. At least ten times in the last five months. Maybe Azazel's psychic kids weren't built for the long haul, Sam had said once. How much more could Sam take, before one of those visions did permanent damage?

They'd wrapped up Dean's knee nice and tight, and he made fair progress to the cafeteria to get coffee. On the way back, he detoured outside and found a shady bench to sit on while he called Jules. She picked up on the second ring. Dean let out a long, shaky breath.

"Hey, sweetheart. I'm sorry I freaked out on you before."

"Don't be. What's going on with Sam?"

"He's asleep. They said it was a seizure, near as they can tell. They want to do more tests."

"What do you think?"

He leaned forward on his elbows, rubbing a hand over his eyes. The coffee curdled in his stomach. "I don't know what to think any more."

"Did you get to see him?"

"Yeah. He's pretty messed up. Having trouble talking and stuff. They said it's normal."

"Listen, I looked up the directions. Katie and I could be there in a couple of days, if you're going to stick around for a while."

"I don't know what we're gonna do. Sam doesn't think a hospital is the answer. He's probably right."

She was quiet for a minute. "I miss you, babe. I want to be there with you."

"I miss you, too." It was the simple truth, but he felt like a traitor to Sam for thinking it.

"You sound exhausted."

"Hate this. Feel so damn helpless."

"I know what you mean," she said, her voice low and intimate in his ear.

He leaned his head on his hand and studied the cracked sidewalk between his feet, the meager spray of grass, a crushed cigarette butt. "Thanks. For everything. I'm sorry, for all of it." He swallowed, his throat working, and tilted his head back against the wall, closing his eyes against the sun. "How you doin'? I should be there with you."

"You are, hon. In every way that matters. You're right where you need to be. I'm fine, don't worry. The baby's fine; Katie's fine. It's gonna be okay."

"I thought—" He stopped. "When he went down, I thought it was all over. I thought, this is it."

"Babe. Listen to me. You and Sam'll figure this out. I have a good feeling."

He cried, then, heat rising in his throat he couldn't prevent, the tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes and sliding down his temples. She was so good for him. He loved her like air. But he knew he'd give her up in a second if it meant Sam would be okay. Nothing in his life had ever made him feel as shitty as that simple truth.

"Hey," she said after a minute. "I love you."

"Yeah," he got out, his voice wrecked. "Me, too."

"Try and get some rest. Give Sam a hug for me. Tell him I said we miss you guys, and we want you to come home."

Dean gave himself fifteen seconds, no more, after he hit the button on his phone. Then he wiped his face and pushed himself to his feet.

They were moving Sam upstairs when he got back. Sam woke groggily, long enough to track Dean's face and not much more than that. He was asleep again by the time they got him into the bed and settled. That was normal, the doctor told him—a new one, an older guy this time.

When the nurses finally left them alone, Dean pulled up a plastic chair and sat beside Sam's bed. Maybe he should have gone to the chapel, said a prayer or lit a candle or whatever it was you did. Sam probably would have. But the afternoon wore on, and it turned out Dean would rather watch Sam sleep than sit around talking to himself.

It also turned out, and Dean faced this fact with bleak, merciless self-honesty, that he was seriously thinking about leaving his pregnant wife and daughter for his own brother. He'd always known he was twisted, messed up in some important, crucial ways, but lately he was learning whole new levels of meaning when it came to twisted and messed up.

Dean straightened his wedding ring with his thumb, then leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. His hand closed around the amulet he wore, his fingers worrying the pendant. What had gone wrong with them, anyway? Somewhere along the line, they'd gone from being normal brothers to whatever they were now, and Dean didn't even know how it had happened. Maybe he'd warped Sam somehow, when he was too little to know any better. Loved him too much. Protected him too much. Maybe it was just that they'd never had anybody else.

Maybe it was that nobody else had ever looked at him like Sam did. Like he was the whole universe, and strong enough to save them both.

"Dean?"

"M'here. Go to sleep, Sammy."

Sam did. A little while later, Dean did, too, and his dreams were restless and full of fire.

* * *

"Hey." Sam kicked Dean's ankle. Dean woke with a start, blinking in the setting sun that lanced its way between the blinds. "Come on, get up," Sam said. "I'm starving." He was wearing hospital slippers and the clean sweat pants and T-shirt Dean had grabbed at the motel on the way out.

"Time is it?"

"A little before five. You were out cold."

Dean sat up. "You're one to talk. How you feelin'?"

Sam looked better. He looked like himself. "Fine," he said. "Ready to be done with this place. I signed myself out."

"Bet they loved that." Sam's lips twitched. Dean gave him a closer look. "You sure that's a good idea?"

"Remember what the autopsy report said, about Amber?"

Dean remembered, all right. That it had happened so fast, nobody could have saved her. _Catastrophic_ was the word that had stuck in his mind. "Yeah," he said, "I remember." Sam shrugged as if to say, so what were they still doing here? "You sure you feel okay?"

"I'm good. I swear. Can't drive, though," he added, apologetic. "They said I'm not allowed for at least six months. Think you can manage?"

"I'm insulted you even asked." Dean searched his face, looking for the lie, but didn't find it. At last he said, "Yeah, okay. Let's blow this joint." He pushed himself to his feet, using Sam for leverage. It was probably a bad sign that the guy who'd just woken up from being unconscious was the one keeping this train moving, but the day Dean couldn't drive his car in a pinch was a rare day indeed.

They made it halfway across the parking lot before Sam said, "Dean, listen. I've been thinking. About Nick Keegan."

Keegan was the last of them, save for Sam. "What about him?"

"We should go see him. Tell him what's happening. I know you think it's better this way, but maybe it's not our place to decide that. He deserves some time to deal with things, you know? Get his affairs in order." Sam hesitated. "Say goodbye."

Dean's jaw set. He wasn't about to listen to Sam being _resigned_ about this.

It was as he opened his mouth to tell Sam as much that the Trickster's words came back to him— _four little, three little, two little psychics_ —and then there was one. For some reason, it clicked in his head with Sam saying they needed to go see the guy.

Dean stopped cold, halting Sam in mid-stride. Out of nowhere, he thought of Ava Wilson. Cute little secretary from Peoria, and she'd almost won the demonic heavyweight championship. _You keep missing the obvious._

He thought of Jake Talley. Chills ran over him in a wave.

"What?" Sam asked, seeing his expression.

"Sammy, this guy, this psychic—how much do you know about him?"

* * *

Back at the motel, Sam looked Keegan up on the laptop. He owned a bike shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. No wife or children, and no living relatives save his mom, who lived in Indianapolis with her second husband. A few calls later, and they found out he'd closed his shop back in January and more or less dropped off the radar.

"Well, that's not suspicious, or anything," Dean said.

"Get this," Bobby said, as the three of them compared notes over speakerphone. "Three weeks ago, his girlfriend disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and he was taken in for questioning, but never charged. He's got a bunch of uncollected debt, but nobody's flagged him—which is why it didn't show up on any background check you mighta ran."

"Thanks, Bobby," Sam said, and reached for the button to end the call. "We'll keep you posted." He met Dean's gaze, and saw Dean making the same connection he was. "Remind you of anyone?" he asked.

"Andy. And his creepy-ass evil twin." They chewed on that. "You think he's paying house calls?" Dean asked. "Killing them in person? Or is this like a long-distance thing, you think?"

"Be easy enough for him to hide it, if he's been racking up the frequent flyer miles."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Power of suggestion can cover up all manner of sins."

"You think he knows we're a threat to him?" Sam asked, because it had to be said.

"We gotta assume he does."

"So what do we do? I mean, I could try and zero in on him. Maybe pick something up—"

"No. No way, screw that. If it is him, if he's behind this somehow, then the last thing we want is to make it easier for him to see us coming."

Sam nodded reluctantly. "The thing I don't get is, how's he doing it? And why?"

Dean tapped an impatient rhythm on the arm of his chair. It was killing him not to be able to pace, Sam guessed. "I'm more concerned with, how do we stop him? We got no idea what he's capable of."

Sam said nothing. At the feeling of being watched, hunted, a deep, quiet anger had kindled inside him, and he was thinking about what _he_ was capable of.

"One thing I do know," Dean said. "We go after him before he comes after you."

"Yeah. I'm with you, there."

"It's about a fourteen hour drive." Dean gave Sam a measuring look. "I'm gonna order some food. You should get some rest."

Sam let that pass without argument. If Dean's hunch was right, this guy was coming for him, and if Dean had his way, Keegan would have to come through Dean to do it. No way Sam was letting that happen. He'd do what he had to.

Better not to think about where that road might lead.

A hot shower, a container of kung pao chicken and half an order of fried rice later, Sam got into bed. He listened to the familiar, comforting sounds of his brother brushing his teeth and gave in to the momentary fantasy of trying to knock Dean out, roofie him so he could get away and face Keegan by himself. But he knew it couldn't happen. If Keegan knew where they were, knew about Dean, and Sam split on him? He'd be leaving Dean exposed and without protection. Not to mention, he thought Dean might seriously never forgive him.

Dean shut off the light and came out of the bathroom. He was getting around all right, not using his cane, but Sam knew all of Dean's tells, and could see he was trying to play off the knee like it was less of a problem than it was.

"We should keep moving for a few days," Sam said, watching Dean cross the room toward him. "Give you a chance to heal up."

"It's nothin', Sam. Not worth worrying about. Comes down to it, I'll manage."

"Yeah, I know you will. But an extra day or two could make the difference between you being in the fight or out of it." Dean grunted, which Sam knew meant that he knew Sam was right, but wasn't ready to admit it.

Dean stopped next to the bed, like he wasn't sure whether to get in with Sam or not. His eyebrows quirked. "Shoulda switched rooms," he said, huffing out a sigh.

Sam's lips twitched. He pushed back the covers and made room. "Like you said, we'll manage."


	6. Chapter 6

A day's travel time and a day to prep was as much as Dean would tolerate, given that the time between Chloe Watson's death and James Patterson’s had been less than forty-eight hours. "He's on the home stretch," Dean said the night they hit Albuquerque, tense with the focused energy and cold fury that had been building in him since the moment he'd been able to connect a name and a face with the threat to Sam. "We got no time to lose, here, Sammy."

"We go in smart, or we don't go in at all," Sam countered, an echo of their dad he knew would carry weight with his brother. But he had other things on his mind.

"What?" Dean demanded, seeing the look on his face.

"Something I've been meaning to try."

Sam leaned forward until his hand rested against Dean's bad knee. Dean's muscles tightened like he would flinch away, but Sam spread his hand wider, letting his palm and fingers curve over bone and ligament. "Hold still," he said, and he reached inward, a light, soaring sensation gathering in his stomach that felt like sunlight. "Don't freak out."

He closed his eyes and channeled that feeling, imagining it traveling up through him, down his arm, and out, a warm ball of energy that he could press into his brother's damaged joint and _through,_ taking the pain with it.

"Dude," Dean said, when Sam pulled his hand away. "What did you just do?"

"Told you not to freak out." Sam felt lightheaded and breathless, a little giddy. Dean stared at him. "Need you in fighting shape," Sam said, like it was an explanation. It had felt like breaching Dean's edges, being connected to him in a way he hadn't expected, and he couldn't help the way that made his heart sing.

Dean shook his head finally, and took the wrap off. "Could warn a guy," he said, but he did not, to his credit, freak out. He flexed the knee, then got up, bouncing to test it, and Sam couldn't help the grin that surfaced. He hadn't really expected it to work.

Dean gave Sam a sidelong look, annoyed. "Pretty damn pleased with yourself, there, Sparky."

"Can you blame me? How's it feel?"

"Good as new," Dean admitted. "But that's beside the point. I thought you said you weren't gonna mess with this stuff."

"Startin' to look like we might not have a choice." Dean had to be thinking it, too, but the look on his face said he wasn't happy about it, not at all. "Dean, look," Sam said, forestalling him. "Don't you get it? This is the first time, the first thing I've ever done that wasn't about hurting someone. I didn't even know if that was possible."

Dean looked like he wanted to stay pissed about it, and hadn't decided yet how ticked off he should be—but Sam's quiet elation made it hard for him to hold on to the feeling. "You gotta be careful with this crap, Sam. Don't waste it on stuff that isn't important."

"Yeah. Because going in to a fight half-crippled isn't important."

Dean shrugged that off, though he didn't argue the point. "I'm just saying, I don't like where this is headed. You won't even think about using your powers to save yourself, but now it's okay to go all Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman on me? That's bullshit."

"It's not the same thing. Dean, it's not. You gotta trust me on this."

"If you say so."

Sam counted it a win, and put aside the twinge of apprehension. He remembered Cold Oak too well. Chances were slim that they'd get through this without him using his abilities, and the better he could control them, the more likely it was that they would both come out of it alive.

The next evening, they sat outside Nick Keegan's ranch-style house on the northeast outskirts of the city, waiting for nightfall. They'd spent the morning putting together the materials for a demonic binding spell Bobby had designed with a few extra tricks thrown in. Then Sam scored the floor plan from the homebuilder's website, and they spent the afternoon in the car, putting together a plan of attack while Dean studied the house with a radar scope and a pair of long-range binoculars. "House is clear," Dean said after he'd watched for a while. "Just him."

The sun was past the mountains, the sky turning crimson when the garage door rose. Keegan pulled out and drove past. He never glanced their direction, and showed no sign of noticing them, but Sam couldn't help the chill that ran down his arms and gathered in his belly.

"Nothin' like trying to sneak up on a psychic," Dean joked, slipping the scope into his pocket and checking his weapons.

"Yeah," Sam said, his voice tight.

This was a bad idea, he thought. The worst he could think of. All the reasons he'd had for agreeing to let Dean go in there with him melted away like so much smoke. "I should go," he said. "You stay here. Cover me."

"You're hilarious, you know that? You should do stand-up."

"Dean, if this doesn't work, he'll use you against me."

"So, don't let him."

"Like it's that easy!"

Dean checked his clip, then slid it home. "We gonna sit here all day, or what?"

Never mind Dean forgiving him. Sam should have tied him up and left him in Arkansas. Now he'd have to try and compel him—or hurt him—to stop him, and what if Keegan came for Dean while Sam was inside? What if he didn't even have to? Back in Cold Oak, Ava had killed Lily halfway across town. Andy had been able to beam thoughts into people's heads from hundreds of miles away.

Sam checked his weapon, and they got out of the car.

They crossed the street and closed in on the house, moving fast. Dean stood watch while Sam disabled the side door's alarm sensor and went to work with his lock picks. In moments, they were inside.

The plan was a simple one: lay a trap inside, wait for Keegan to come home, and knock him out before he knew what was happening. Then they'd work the binding on him to contain his abilities while they questioned him. "If it is him," Dean had said as they'd prepped the night before, "you know we got no choice but to take him out."

"Yeah," was all Sam had said. Dean would get no argument from him.

They worked quickly and in near-silence, stringing the tripwire and loading the tranq guns. "Watch your prints," Dean cautioned, though Sam didn't need to be told. When everything was ready, they each took one side of the door to the garage, and settled in to wait.

It was then, as the sun set and the shadows in the house sank into a deep, inky gloom, that Sam cocked his head. He looked at Dean.

"Did you hear something?" he murmured.

"Hello, boys," a female voice said, low and full of laughter, from the dining room behind them.

They spun; a young, fit brunette they'd never seen before stepped out into the doorway holding a .45, cocked and pointed right at Sam's chest.

"Fancy toys you have, there. And just the thing, if you want to take out a bunker full of human soldiers. Too bad this body stopped breathing a long time ago."

Her eyes flicked to black, a wide grin curving her lips. _Ruby,_ was Sam's first thought, a chill of pure dread sinking through him. But as soon as the thought could form, reason kicked in. It couldn't be. But if not Ruby, then—

She came in to the kitchen, keeping her gun trained on them. "Let's see how long it takes them." At Dean's expression, her smile widened. "Aw, sweetheart, come on, admit it. You missed me. 'Cause Hell only knows, I sure missed you."

Sam's suspicion solidified. Tone dripping with contempt, Dean gave it voice.

"Meg."

Sam itched to yank the pistol out of her hands. He'd never been able to make telekinesis work for him on command—the handful of times he'd done it, it had been a gut reaction response to desperation. There was another way, but it had been a long time since he’d pulled a demon from its host. He’d never done it on his own, without the demon blood to fuel it. He didn’t like his odds of pulling it off before she could pull the trigger, but he might not have a choice.

Before he could try, her phone rang. She wore a tiny, wireless ear bud headset. "Hey, baby," she said, never letting the muzzle of the gun waver. "Better hurry home. We've got company."

Keegan, Sam thought. Probably not long before he got here. And if he and Meg were in this together, if she'd been doing for Keegan what Ruby had once done for him—

Sam hesitated less than a second. Then he stepped in front of Dean, blocking the demon's line of fire. "Dean," he said, tight. "Go."

For a second that felt like forever, Dean hesitated. Sam knew it went against every ounce of instinct and training Dean had in him to leave Sam alone with her. But something in Sam's voice must have convinced him; half a heartbeat later, Sam heard him move, heading back toward the garage, and Meg's smirk fell away. Anger flashed over her face. "Dean! You get back here right now, or I shoot your brother in the heart!"

"He's not gonna fall for that. You want me alive, or you would have done it already." Sam prayed he was right, and that Dean knew it, too.

"Pretty sure of yourself," Meg said. She considered him for half a second, then shifted her aim and pulled the trigger.

The bullet took Sam in the shoulder. He flew back, hitting the wall with a grunt. Blinding agony exploded from the place where she'd hit him, taking his breath. She took off after Dean, and he managed to recover enough to get in her way, doing his best to slow her down. "Dean, I'm okay! Go!"

"You are really starting to piss me off, you know that?" she snapped. When she used her demon strength to slam him up against a wall, he stopped fighting and let her go. He had no choice, any more than she did. As long as he and Dean were together, they could be used against each other. But if they split Meg and Keegan up, they had a chance. He was going to have to trust that Dean could handle Meg on his own.

* * *

Dean moved like hellhounds were after him, which wasn't far from the truth. He plunged through the garage and out of the house, then took off across the side lawn, making a dash for the car. He hoped against hope that Sam knew what the hell he was doing. That gunshot had taken years off his life. His heart was still going a mile a minute.

The streetlights had come on, the last of the evening sun fading out of the sky. He made it to the car and got the trunk open, trying desperately to clear his head so he could think. Holy water would be a good start, but he was a target only so much as he was a threat to Keegan, and Meg's plans for him. He had to make sure she stayed focused on him. She'd never hesitated before when it came to collateral damage; cops would be no help, and if he didn't get her controlled fast, she was likely to start tearing her way through the neighborhood one soccer mom at a time.

Unless he could piss her off. The thing about this demon was, she was smart. But she had a temper on her, and a hate-on for Dean that wouldn't quit. The feeling was mutual, and Dean figured at the moment, it was the best weapon he had.

A gunshot exploded off the metal of the trunk, and Dean ducked. "Oh, you bitch," he growled, seeing the gouge she'd left in the metal. A second crack split the air, then a third, the muzzle flash of Sam's 9-millimeter laying down covering fire from the house. Meg turned and took another shot at Sam, but she was too far away in the near-dark to hit anything except by blind luck, and Dean knew Sam wouldn't give her the opportunity.

Ten, maybe fifteen minutes at the most before the cops got out here. Dean's eyes fell on the box of grenades. A long shot, but better than nothing. He grabbed two, shoved them in his pocket, and slammed the trunk shut.

Dean didn't give her a chance to take another potshot at Sam, or get a bead on Dean; she was twenty feet away when he aimed the SuperSoaker at her face, and let loose with a blast of holy water. She screamed and flinched back, clawing at her eyes.

"Sorry, sweetheart," he lied. "Been waiting to do that a long, long time."

"You _asshole,_ " she snarled, blind. Her eyes were black, her skin sizzling. Well, as far as pissing her off went, score one for Dean.

"You got that right," he said, and started toward her. He was reaching for his knife when he heard a car turn the corner, tires squealing, heading their direction.

Keegan. Dammit. If he'd just had a few more seconds. Dean hesitated for a heartbeat, then dug out one of the grenades and pulled the pin, rolling it underhand down the center of the street. He watched it roll toward the oncoming SUV, then turned and broke into a sprint, heading away from Sam against every impulse he owned.

The blast hit as he reached the grass. He heard the screech of tires. He winced, and turned back long enough to see Keegan's car miss the Impala by six feet and plow through a mailbox. The good news stopped there, because the SUV was still in one piece, and Meg had recovered enough to start after Dean. Dean heard her yell at Keegan as he got out of the car.

Dean didn't stick around to see if Keegan listened. He got one last glimpse of Sam standing in the driveway, gun drawn and held low. "All yours, Sammy," Dean said under his breath, then turned and slipped around the back of a house with a For Sale sign. At the gate, he slung the water pistol across his shoulders and hauled himself up and over.

Meg was maybe thirty yards behind him. No time for a devil's trap, and no way to get her to stand still long enough for an exorcism. He was gonna have to do this the old fashioned way.

Dean ran toward the back door.

* * *

Sam ducked when the grenade went off. He saw Keegan swerve, saw Meg take off after Dean. Then Keegan got out of the car, and Sam felt every hair on his body stand up, like he'd walked straight into a force field.

The street lights flickered. Sam backed toward the house. Nick Keegan, a tall, muscular white guy with a brush cut and a goatee, strode toward him in the gathering dark like he had all the time in the world.

Sam slipped in through the side door, neck prickling as he moved swift and silent back toward the kitchen. Keegan came after him, and Sam mentally crossed his fingers that the tripwire would still catch him. But Keegan stepped over it, following Sam deeper into the house as Sam backed toward the living room.

"Gonna have to try harder than that, Sammy," Keegan said, his teeth and the gold stud in his ear glinting in the shadows.

"It's Sam," Sam said. He raised his gun and fired across the kitchen island.

Keegan raised a hand even as Sam took aim, as if he knew what Sam intended, and the bullet stopped in midair. It dropped to the floor, harmless, bouncing off the tile with a metallic click. "Always wanted to do that," Keegan confessed.

"Nick, listen. It doesn't have to be like this." Sam backed away; Keegan kept advancing. Meg's bullet had gone through Sam's shoulder, but the wound hurt like hell, and Sam could feel the blood soaking his shirt.

"Oh, come on. Of course it does. I've killed so many of us. What, you're just gonna let me walk away? Yeah, didn't think so." Keegan smiled, an expression that might have been charming if it weren't for the manic, glittering coldness in his eyes. Sam recognized the look; Keegan had to be getting regular doses of Meg's blood, because his eyes were barely human any more.

"You can't trust her," Sam said, stopping in the middle of the room. "You know that, right? As soon as she's finished with you, as soon as she's done using you for whatever she has planned, you'll be as good as road kill to her."

"I'm sure she thinks so," Keegan said. "But who's using who?" He circled around Sam, and Sam could feel the aura of Keegan's power deep in his gut, making him feel nauseated, making his head ache. His shoulder throbbed, and he focused on the pain; it anchored him, gave him something to hold on to.

"Is this about power to you?" Sam asked. "You think that'll be enough to save you?"

"You got no idea what it feels like," Keegan told him. "The demon blood is nothing to the juice I get from one of you. And you're the last one, so I'm gonna make this last a while. On your knees, Sam," he added like an afterthought.

The dizzying urge to go to his knees, to give up, was overpowering. Sam fought it, and managed to stay standing, though he could feel himself trembling with the effort.

Keegan's eyes lit up. He came to a stop in front of Sam. "Impressive. She told me you'd be a lot stronger than those others, but I gotta tell you, I didn't expect much. Guy like you. She says you haven't touched the stuff since Lilith. Regular Obi-Wan, she says. Scared to give in to the dark side."

"You should be, too," Sam said. "Trust me."

"You know what I think?" Keegan said, and reached out, closing his hand into a fist. Sam felt a sudden, excruciating pressure, ribs and lungs and internal organs all compressed in a spasm of agony. A tormented sound escaped him, and he fought to keep his feet. "I think it's a big fucking joke that you were the one he picked. Never had the balls to accept what you are." Keegan opened his hand, palm out, and laid it flat over Sam's heart; he let loose with a jolt of electricity so strong it stopped Sam's breath and flung him backwards to crash into the entertainment center.

Sam's heart seized up. Blackness closed down over his vision. The agony in his chest was staggering, and he lost a space of seconds as he lay crumpled there, broken glass from the TV scattered under him.

Keegan had all their abilities, Sam realized, his thoughts scrambled and his body trying desperately to hold on to the basic things like breathing. He'd taken them, somehow. Not just killed the others, but taken their power as his own and learned to control it. Maybe that was his particular talent, and the demon blood fueled it all.

"Been waiting for this a long time," Keegan said, crouching over Sam and laying a hand against his face almost tenderly. "Now that I have you, nobody will be able to tell me what to do. Not the demons, not anybody. You know why?" He stroked Sam's lips with his thumb.

Excruciating pain came like nothing Sam had ever felt. As Keegan touched him, Sam's nerves lit like napalm, every blood vessel expanding as if Keegan pulled all the blood in his body to the surface of his skin and replaced it with molten metal. He gasped out a wordless protest, helpless in the face of it. It was hellfire; it was more than he could stand. And it went on, merciless, as Keegan went on touching his face, his fingertips feeling like they sank inexorably into Sam's skull.

"Because I'll be able to see the future. It's the best power of all, and once I have it, nothing can stop me. I'm what you should have been, Sam. I'm what all of us were meant to be. Come on, admit it. You see where I'm goin' with this." When Sam didn't answer, he sighed. "Yeah, I know, it hurts. That's what they all tell me. But hang in there, okay? We got a long way to go, yet, me and you." He bent down when he said it, and his voice came low, intimate in Sam's ear. Sam gasped again, the warm gush of blood from his nose flowing like copper and salt tears over his lips. "A long fucking way to go, my friend."

* * *

In the dark, vacant house across the street, Dean kicked loose from Meg's steely hold and scrambled up the hall, struggling to bring the water pistol around to bear. She knocked it out of his hands with a vicious kick, shoving him against the wall with invisible force. He stayed there, twisted up and half on his back, where she'd pinned him.

"Cute, Dean, real cute." She swung herself over his outstretched thighs and crouched there, the pose provocative, but nothing to the look on her face. "It's been fun, don't get me wrong. But fun time is over, now."

"Aw, sweetheart, I'm just getting started."

She smiled, pleased with herself now that she had him trapped. "Always the attitude with you. I'm gonna enjoy this way too much." She leaned forward, licking a hot, wet stripe up his neck, then biting his ear. Into it, she murmured, "And when I'm done with you, Nick and I are gonna have _so much fun_ with little Sammy."

"Awesome," he grated out. "I'm happy for you. But there's something you should know."

"And what's that?" Meg drew a switchblade from her belt and flicked it open, then traced Dean's jaw with the edge, watching the thin line of blood she raised with avaricious fascination.

"There's this hoodoo priest in Shreveport who makes demon charms. The real deal, in case you were wondering. Handy little suckers."

"And I should care why?" She brought the blade down, slicing deftly through the button threads of Dean's shirt and slipping the blade underneath to tease at his stomach, watching his reaction. He tensed the muscles, flinching away.

"Because there's something else you don't know."

"Oh? Do tell."

His hand, inching downward all along, found the knife hidden at his ankle.

Her look of astonished disbelief was her last expression. He seized the hilt and pulled it free, then brought it up in a swift, backhanded slash across her throat. "Still have Ruby's knife," he said, and watched her die with a choked-off scream and a flicker of fire and brimstone. "Did I forget to mention that?"

* * *

Where the fuck were the cops? Dean wondered as he crossed the street at a dead run. Keegan's place was out in the hills, but not that far out. After that grenade blast, Dean should have at least heard sirens. Had to be Keegan's doing. A glance at the houses nearby showed faces at a couple of the windows, but nobody had dared to set a foot outside as far as Dean could see.

"It's a good life," Dean muttered under his breath as he ran. Poor bastards.

A white glow flickered at the front windows of Keegan's house like heat lightning. Dean's heart skipped and he put on another burst of speed. _Sam._ He didn't bother to go around, just blew a couple holes in the lock and kicked the front door in. It slammed open and Dean followed, gun at the ready.

Keegan didn't even look up. He raised a hand in Dean's direction, and it felt like Dean ran face first into a sonic blast. It knocked him sideways into the wall, knocked the breath out of him. He hit the ground, then made it halfway to his feet before Keegan finally looked at him, and Dean saw that his eyes had gone demon-black. "Don't move," Keegan told him. And as easily as that, Dean couldn't. He struggled to raise his gun, to take a step forward, but not a single muscle would obey him.

Keegan stood over Sam, looking like he'd barely broken a sweat. Sam was bleeding from the nose, and wrecked, like Keegan had been working him over in ways that Dean didn't want to think about. He was on his hands and knees, and looked about one breath from passing out, or worse.

"Let him go, you son of a bitch," Dean managed.

Sam's head came up at that, though it looked like it cost him. "Dean," he choked. "Don't."

"Oh, no," Keegan said. "Big brother wants to be a part of this, let him. He can watch while I take what's mine."

Dean snarled, "I killed your girlfriend, asswipe. You're next."

Keegan's night-black eyes flickered over Dean, his grin fierce. "Yeah, thanks. I was gonna get to that, but you saved me the trouble." His expression darkened, and he turned back to Sam, who was struggling to push himself up. "Man, you don't give up, do you?"

Dean watched Sam fight with everything he had to get to his feet, but he could tell his brother was down to his last reserves. Keegan was alight with power, setting Dean's teeth on edge in a way he remembered too well. "C'mon, Sammy," he breathed, wishing like hell that he had a shadow of that power himself, so he could break Keegan's compulsion even for a few seconds. That was all he'd need to put a bullet in the guy's head.

As if Sam heard him, his eyes sought Dean's. Dean let out a ragged breath. It felt like a connection closed, like no one and nothing in the world could ever touch what they were to each other, and if they were going to die here, after everything, at least Sam knew it, too.

 _You are bound to one another,_ he thought then, the shaman's words coming back to him with quiet certainty. _He will need you to ground him._

Dean's heart missed a beat. "Sam," he said, not a clue what he was doing, only that he knew what he had to do. "Look at me."

Sam did. After what felt like a lifetime, he nodded, an almost imperceptible gesture, and then Dean saw him take a breath. He pushed himself up, able to do it, now. His eyes never wavered from Dean's.

Dean saw Keegan go pale and falter, like somebody had shifted his center of gravity. His face twisted in disbelief. "What the hell?"

Keegan lifted his hands, and Sam made a sound of pain, but kept his feet. Dean saw the blood spill fresh from his nose. His shirt was already wet with it. The strain in his face betrayed how bad he was hurting, but more than that, Dean recognized the stubborn set of his jaw, the hard line of his mouth. At last Sam turned to look at Keegan, and Dean saw the steel in his spine. A thrill of pride and love lanced through Dean's heart, and for the first time since Lilith, he saw the proof that he'd always been right to believe in Sam, even against this. Demons had tried all Sam's life to control him, to lay claim to the things Sam could do, to what he was, but for the second time, Dean saw Sam take it back and own it, make it his and nobody else's.

Keegan fell back like he'd been hamstrung, going to one knee. He grunted, and fought it, but despite his fury he couldn't regain the upper hand.

He looked at Dean, then, furious, and spat out, "Put your gun in your mouth, Dean."

Dean tried like hell to resist, but it didn't do him any good. Slow and inexorable, the muzzle of his Colt came around, and he brought it up, forced it between his trembling lips. He closed his eyes. Oh, Sammy, he thought. Don't look.

"No!" Sam got out. His voice was shredded, the strain of what he was doing plain, but that word came like the final slice of a guillotine slamming down. Faster than thought, the gun ripped out of Dean's hand and flew sideways across the room to skate across the floor. Dean opened his eyes, heart racing.

Sam twisted his hand. Keegan's head came around, forcing him to look at Sam. "You don't talk to him," Sam snarled. "You don't even look at him." He braced his feet apart and raised both hands in front of him, palms facing each other and fingers splayed like he was holding a basketball. "Not one—more—word." Then he made a sharp, twisting gesture, his face full of fury as he snapped Keegan's neck without ever touching him.

Keegan slumped to the floor. The compulsion that had held Dean in place broke. Between one breath and the next, he could move; he crossed the room to Sam so fast he was there to grab hold of him when the tension ran out and Sam swayed. "Hey, hey. I gotcha."

Sam shuddered and let out a long breath. "Dean." His pupils were blown, the blood a steady trickle over his lip, and he was so pale that color stood out like blooms on his cheeks. Dean could feel him shaking, could feel the heat coming off him in waves.

"I'm here. I'm right here, Sammy. Stay with me, okay?"

Sam grabbed on to his arm and nodded. Dean gave his shoulder wound a cursory glance. A lot of blood had soaked through his shirt, but not so much that it had him worried about nicked arteries, or anything else serious. "Meg's dead?" Sam asked.

Dean nodded. "For good, this time." He locked a hand around Sam's wrist, feeling his pulse there, steady and strong.

"Shot me in the same damn shoulder," Sam said, and it was meant to reassure Dean that he was okay, but he was slurring, the words coming harder than he'd probably meant them to.

"Lucky you," Dean said. At the moment, the bullet wound was the least of his worries. He checked Sam's eyes. His pupils were wide, but even, and his eyes tracked Dean's face the way they always did. "Can you move?"

"Think so."

"Okay. Let's get you out of here." He pulled Sam's good arm across his shoulders, put his own around Sam's waist. Sam made no protest as Dean steered them for the door.

The sound of distant sirens came as they made for the car. Seemed like no matter what they did, Dean was destined to spend his life pulling his brother from burning buildings. At the moment, he was too stupid with relief that they were both alive to worry about it.

* * *

  


Sam could guess Dean's thoughts easily enough, as Dean got them onto the state highway and headed north toward Santa Fe. His immediate goal would be to get them out of the city and find someplace where they could hole up. Santa Fe, Sam knew Dean was thinking, would at least have a decent-sized hospital, if it came to that.

Dean drove into the night, glancing over with that worried expression every minute or two. Sam kept his eyes closed, his head pressed against the cool glass, oncoming headlights an occasional bright agony against his eyelids. He felt sick, but it was only partly from the headache, which subsided a little with every mile.

"Dean, I'm fine," he said, after the sixth or seventh time he felt Dean's eyes on him.

"Yeah, 'cause you look fine."

Sam said nothing. He'd believed for six months that he was living on borrowed time, and he'd never really imagined an alternative. He couldn't get past the awful sense of failure for not seeing it sooner, not saving anyone except himself. _And Dean,_ he reminded himself. But that was small comfort; Dean had only ever been in danger because of him. That was nothing new. If it wasn't for Sam, for what he was, Dean might have grown up like a normal kid, with Mom and Dad, instead of giving up everything for Sam, risking his life to save him, over and over.

"Okay, you know what? That's enough," Dean said. Sam felt the car slow, and Dean pulled off the road. Gravel crunched under the tires. Sam opened his eyes.

They rolled to a stop in the deserted parking lot of a boarded-up restaurant. Dean shut off the car and turned to Sam, intent. "What's goin' on with you?"

"I told you—"

"Yeah, I heard. You're fine. Except you're burning up so bad I can feel it from three feet away, and it feels like I'm sitting next to a bomb that's about to go off. Whatever this is, you gotta calm the fuck down. Okay?"

Sam closed his hands into fists, breathing in deep through his nose. "I'm trying," he said. "Dean, I am, but you can't push me. Not right now."

The concern in Dean's eyes deepened, and it just made the fires of banked rage burn hotter in Sam's head. He closed his eyes, swallowing hard against the urges that ran through him like a river over its banks.

He fumbled for the door handle and got out. "Sam!" Dean called after him. But Sam ignored him, pacing away from him in long strides. He got to the edge of the parking lot and ran out of room, the scrub brush a dense thicket in front of him. He made a fist and punched it hard into a spindly oak tree, barely feeling it. It helped, a little.

"All right, that's enough," Dean ordered, grabbing hold of him. "Stop it."

"I can't," Sam said, his chest tight, desperate.

"Yes. You can. Look at me, okay? Talk to me."

Sam trembled in his grip for long moments, fighting the instinct that made him feel like he had to lash out, like Dean was a threat. He wanted to do something unforgivable, and Dean was right there, refusing to see the danger.

Sam fought it for an uncounted space of heartbeats, until finally he could breathe again. "It's like no matter what I do—" he got out, then stopped.

"You didn't do anything, except save both our asses." Dean held his gaze. "Sam, what you did in there—I know how hard that was for you. I get it. But when it came down to it, you beat that asshole the way I knew you would, because you're stronger than this thing you got inside you. You're stronger than the demons or anybody else ever guessed. And I'm proud of you. Okay? I'm so goddamned proud of you right now, I could light up a city with it. You get me? That piece of shit was not worth the dirt on your shoes."

"It's not about Keegan," Sam said. "It's all of them, Dean. Ten people, like me. All dead. It's like no matter what I do, no matter what I touch—" Despair threatened to choke him, and he paced away, shoulders tight and unspent energy making him tremble. "It's never going to be over, is it? You'd think I'd have learned. You'd think I'd know. Look at what I've done to you."

"Sam, I'm serious. Cut it the fuck out right now." Dean's tone got through to Sam; Sam realized he was in danger of overloading, and struggled to get it under control. "Listen to me. This is not on you. That son of a bitch made it look like natural causes for a reason. He played us. What happened to you was done to you, you hear me? Same goes for them."

"Is that supposed to make it better?"

"Of course it doesn't. You think I don't know that? I'm the one who said we should leave them in the dark." Sam finally listened to him then. "Yeah. I'm not gonna forget that any time soon. It sucks, okay? But you've said it yourself, we can't save everybody. Nobody can."

"I should have seen it. I should have known it was him."

"You couldn't have. Andy's powers never worked on you, remember? You couldn't have known. He was strong, maybe as strong as you, and he had help. We had nothing to go on. So, no, this was not your fault. You gotta let it go, man."

Sam closed his eyes, not wanting to hear it. He'd been fighting his own abilities so long, it was like he willed himself blind most of the time. Mira Ramirez, and others they'd talked to, had sensed as much. He'd been so distracted with Dean, his head was a mess—Dean, too. If they hadn't been, maybe they would have realized sooner what was right in front of them.

"Look," Dean said. "Maybe it was always gonna happen like this. It's like you said, everything has a balance point."

Sam flexed his hand. He walked a few paces away, and Dean watched him wrestle with it.

It hit Dean hard then, that Sam wasn't gonna die. That it was over. He got how Sam felt, he did, but right then, it was hard to share it. Instead, he felt a swell of deep, vast relief, a lot like being drunk on the best whiskey, and if that made him a selfish bastard, so be it. "Coulda been worse," he said, and the emotion in his voice made Sam turn around. Dean knew what he was feeling had to be written all over him.

The lines of Sam's face softened, and Dean suddenly wanted to kiss him more than anything. His cheeks and the tips of his ears got warm, but he didn't look away, letting Sam see it.

"So, you done beating the crap out of that tree, or what?" he said, gruff, and he must have looked about as unsteady as he felt, because the wire-taut rage ran out of Sam and he let it go, pulling in a shaky breath of his own. At last he closed his eyes and nodded tightly, coming back toward Dean.

Dean didn't touch him, not trusting himself to. Instead he turned back toward the car, and Sam fell into step with him, letting Dean drive for both of them.

* * *

An hour later, Dean pulled off the highway and headed into town without saying anything. Sam looked at him sidelong, trying to suss out where his head was at, and met the intent, focused look of a Dean who had his mind on something and wasn't going to let anything stand in his way. When they turned off the main drag into the parking lot of the first motel they saw, Sam's heart beat a fierce, uneven tattoo.

Dean turned off the car and went to get them a room. When he came back, crossing the parking lot with his shoulders set, Sam followed. He felt lightheaded and dazed, exhaustion and the adrenaline crash combined with the floating feeling he got after a bad migraine.

"All they had," Dean said, chagrined, when Sam saw the two beds.

Sam couldn't help the laugh that welled up. Figured. "Wish I'd been there to see you ask."

Dean reached for him, pulling him in close until Sam could feel the unsteady rhythm of his heart. Dean held on for some unmeasured time, then pulled Sam's head down so he could kiss him, deep and hungry and too-long denied. Sam couldn't stop himself from responding, not when Dean made demands like this, asking with his body for things that had always been his. Sam still had blood all over his face and neck, his shirt soaked through with it, but if Dean didn't care, neither did he. Dean asked and Sam denied him nothing, opening up to him in every way he knew how.

Dean broke away at last. He was breathing unevenly, but his hands were careful as he unbuttoned Sam's shirt and reached up to ease it off him, pushing him gently back toward the bed. "Come on, let's look at that shoulder."

"Doesn't even hurt," Sam said, realizing it was true. He'd forgotten about it on the drive.

When Dean pulled the torn cloth away from the wound, he frowned. "Okay, that's new." He checked the exit wound, and grunted.

"What?" Sam asked, trying to see.

Dean got up and grabbed the first aid kit, then detoured to the bathroom for a couple of hot washcloths and a towel. He came back and handed those to Sam.

While Sam went to work on his face and neck, Dean knelt between his legs. He ripped open a cotton pad and poured peroxide on it, using it to clean the wound. Or rather, the place where the wound had been. When he wiped away the dried blood and bits of fabric, Sam saw what Dean had seen: the hole had closed, leaving a red mark on the skin and not much more. They met each other's eyes. "Nice side effect," Dean commented, though Sam could tell he was shaken.

He tried a smile. "This mean we don't get to play doctor?"

Dean cleaned the scrapes on Sam's knuckles, then took the towel and wiped away the last of the blood on Sam's face. "It means we're gonna talk about this new development—tomorrow." His thumb rubbed a circle against the side of Sam's neck. "That okay with you?"

"Tomorrow's good," Sam said, every inch of his skin suddenly alight from that small touch. "Tomorrow's awesome, actually."

Dean leaned up and kissed him, not a blatantly sexual kiss, but one full of need, and love, and fervent gratitude. It made Sam ache down to his bones. Dean broke away to check Sam's face. "You okay? Really?"

"Yeah. I think I really am."

"Because if you're not, last chance to tell me."

Sam suppressed a smile. "You talk a lot. Anyone ever tell you that?"

Dean wiped the last traces of blood off Sam's shoulder and tossed the ruined towel aside. Faster than Sam could credit, Dean stripped every piece of clothing off them and got Sam naked on the bed, spread out like a feast beneath him.

Dean bit his hip gently, then crawled upward, devouring Sam as he went: his chest, his neck, his ears, until flashes of heat spread over every inch of Sam's skin and curled deep in his belly.

Sam's breath came fast as he helped Dean make his way up. He got his hands on Dean's ass, Dean's strong thighs spread over his neck. Dean leaned forward, gripped the headboard, and Sam took what was on offer with a greedy hunger that had him groaning around Dean's cock, stroking Dean's stomach and his flanks and urging him on. At first Dean was too careful with him, wanting to go slow, like Sam was breakable. Sam insisted with his hands and tongue until Dean finally straddled his shoulders and slid his cock deep into Sam's mouth, half-choking him, slicking his tongue with the salty-sweet fluid that leaked from the tip.

"God, so good, Sammy. So fucking good. Yeah. Like that. Suck it, come on. Fuck." He groaned and thrust himself into Sam's mouth with long, steady strokes. He tried to hold back, but Sam sucked him for all he was worth, his hands all over Dean's skin and his body afire with blistering arousal. Hearing Dean talk like that, tasting him, being held down while Dean choked him with his cock—it lit him up in every way that mattered.

Dean resisted when Sam tried to make him come, Sam's tongue curling around the head of his cock. Dean rode him, eyes glittering, then pulled away and slid back down, attacking Sam all over, licking and nuzzling and biting him until Sam could hardly stand it. Dean pushed his legs apart before Sam could stop him and held him open. Sam's face flamed hot when Dean's tongue slid into him. It was more than he could take.

He pushed Dean away, but grasped Dean's cock, swiping a smear of precome over the head. "Come on, fuck me. I want you to. Dean, please." Dean throbbed in his hand. He wasted no time, reaching for the lotion he'd brought from the bathroom, getting it on himself with shaking hands. He slicked some on Sam. Then he pushed inside with steady insistence.

Dean felt so good like that, Sam couldn't breathe, and he never wanted it to end. "You okay?" Dean asked, his voice small, a little desperate. He moved, careful, but like he couldn't help it.

Sam rocked into him, told him, "Yes. Yeah. God, yes." He couldn't help the sounds he made, soft, breathy sobs with every deep, slow push of Dean naked inside him, all the nerves in his body firing hot and flooding him with pleasure every time Dean moved. It felt like coming home, like they were always meant to fit together this way. Sam wasn't going to die, and Dean looked like he was letting himself believe that for the first time. Dean's eyes locked on his until it was too much and Sam squeezed his shut, head turned aside and breath shuddering.

"Hey," Dean said, his voice ragged and torn wide open. "Hey, Sammy. Look at me. Look at me."

"Dean," Sam whispered. He couldn't manage any more than that. Not with Dean hot and thick inside him, his heart pounding and Dean looking at him like they had nothing to fear. Nothing was better than this, Sam thought. Nothing in the entire world. Some part of him knew it was the last time, but he couldn't hold back, not when it was Dean, not when they both needed this so much.

"Fucking love you," Dean gasped at the end, shaking so bad Sam wanted to cry from it. "Always have, so goddamned much."

"Me, too," Sam whispered, and held on because it was all he could do.

* * *

After, they cleaned up and moved to the other bed. Sam was sore but he felt so good, he never wanted to move again. If he had his way, they'd never leave this room.

It wasn't a good thought.

  



	7. Chapter 7

When Dean woke, it was almost two. His eyes went to the shape by the window, where his brother sat staring out at the passing headlights.

"Sam?"

After a pause that lasted a heartbeat too long, Sam answered. "Hey."

"What's wrong?"

Again, Sam didn't answer at first. Finally he said, "You said you'd do whatever I wanted."

Dean sat up and turned on the light. "Yeah," he said. His insides twisted. He knew this was going to be bad. Then he saw Sam swallow like he had glass in his throat, and his heart sank. Scratch that. This was going to suck out loud.

Sam drew a deep, steadying breath. In a low voice, he said, "We can't keep doing this. You have to let me go."

Even braced for it, Dean felt anger well up, denial hot in his throat. But as quick as it came, it faded, because there was nothing he could say that would make it better.

"I don't want to," he whispered. His sinuses burned.

Sam looked at him finally, his eyes shining with unshed tears. "I know you don't. I know that. But we can't keep doing this to your family. To us, Dean. We have to stop. And I can't do it alone. You have to help me." He looked at his hands. "Maybe eventually I can figure something out. I mean, I did it before, right? There has to be a way."

"A way to fake it, you mean. Go back to how things were. Pretend like everything's okay."

Sam looked away. "It wouldn't be the first time."

But I didn't know anything then, Dean thought.

His heart felt like it was pounding against his ribs, like it was pumping twice the blood it should be. "You say stop like it's something I know how to do. Like I'm not half out of my head over you."

Sam flinched. He looked at Dean, dismay darkening his expression. "You don't know what you're saying."

"Yeah, well, I wish that was true."

"Dean."

The stricken look on Sam's face wrenched at him. Dean felt the same way.

Sam got up and came to him, sat on the bed with him, bent down and rested his forehead against Dean's shoulder like he was praying. "What the hell are we gonna do?"

Dean tangled his fingers into Sam's hair, rested his fist against the back of Sam's neck and held on tight. "Hell if I know." His heart beat hard against his chest. "All I know is, I can't let you walk out of my life. Not again. I can't."

Sam nodded. He took a breath and let it out.

They lay down together. Dean held on to him, and Sam wound himself around Dean like he was afraid he'd disappear.

Dean sighed, tucking Sam's face into his neck. "How many times do I gotta say it's not your fault? If anybody's to blame, it's me."

Sam's arm tightened around him. "I started this. How is it your fault?"

"I was the one who wanted to keep us together all the time. Ever since we were kids. Maybe—"

"Don't be stupid. You didn't do anything wrong. You took care of me the best you could. I'm the one who's messed up. You know that."

"The fuck I do," Dean told him, fierce with it. "The fuck I do, Sammy. Don't you ever say that. You're the best thing that ever happened to me."

He didn't know if Sam believed him, but he shut up, and let Dean have the last word.

* * *

That was the thing about Dean, Sam thought. Just when you thought he'd given you everything he had, everything a person could give, he found another piece of his heart to put in your hands.

Dean slept at last, weeks of worry smoothing away from his face, and Sam watched him, knowing this was where it started to tear them apart. This was where they'd both pay the price for crossing lines they never should have. They'd fallen back into their little world of two, but it wasn't like that any more—no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't forget that Dean had a family, had a wife and daughter who needed him, and soon he'd have a little boy to call him Daddy. Dean was ready to tear himself in two and walk out on all of it for Sam, but Sam wanted that life for him so badly he could taste it.

Dean had chosen him. He'd said, tell me what to do, and I'll do it, and he'd meant it. But Sam couldn't let Dean do that to himself. Jules was one thing, bad enough, but Katie, and the baby—if Dean lost them, he would never be able to face himself in the mirror, never forgive himself, and Sam couldn't live with being responsible for that. He'd seen Dean with Katie. Dean would never get over it. It would always be between them, and how long would it be before they couldn't face each other?

He could taste the bitter resentment that festered in him, the dark hunger to have Dean's attention on him, the secret part of him that wanted them to have only each other and need nobody else. They'd lived that way for so long, it took an effort of Herculean will to deny that selfish desire and try for something better, for what Dean deserved.

He'd gotten close to the worst in himself today. But watching Dean sleep, his love for his brother was deep enough and strong enough that he knew he could do what needed to be done. What he had to do, for all of them. Dean believed Sam would do the right thing every time, and Sam knew it wasn't true, but he had to try. He'd run from what he was most of his life, but not this time.

It was in that moment, when his heart was full of Dean and he knew it was now or never, he found the strength to slip in under Dean's wide-open edges.

For a moment it was bliss. Tears choked him unexpectedly. He closed his eyes and breathed through it, knowing it was the last time he could let himself do this—it was too dangerous, for both of them. A big part of him never wanted to stop.

Before he could let himself think about what he was doing, he found the threads he needed and pulled, oh so carefully, no room for mistakes. The memories weren't hard to find. They ran deep and resonant in Dean's mind; they flooded Sam with bright emotion when he touched them and came into his hands easily, singing echoes deep within him. He expected them to be hidden away, stained with shame, but they were nothing like that; Dean had held them close and carefully, and all Sam felt when he touched them was the same intense devotion Dean had given him all his life, the same awe and wonder Sam had felt each time they gave in to the depth of feeling between them.

It made him hesitate. If things had happened differently, he might have even thought—

—but he couldn't let himself think that. Dean did crazy, stupid things when he thought he was going to lose Sam. It never would have happened if Dean hadn't thought Sam was dying. Sam held on to that, told himself it was true, because he couldn't let himself believe otherwise. It never would have happened. And if he did this, then Dean could have both. He could have Sam, and a home, and a family, and not have to choose.

Too soon, it was done. Sam lay in the dark, not touching, and tried to hold himself together, shaking from the scary feeling of being so alone inside his skin when a moment ago, he'd been with Dean. It's done, he told himself. Let it go. Let it fucking go, and be his brother, like he needs you to be.

When he could move, he got up and crawled into the other bed. Once there, he curled up, closed his eyes and made himself breathe, slow and steady, counterpoint to the solitary beat of his own heart. It was the single hardest thing he'd ever done.


	8. Chapter 8

  
_You and me and the devil makes three  
Don't need no other lovin' babe  
Go to sleep little babe  
Go to sleep little babe  
Come lay bones on the alabaster stones  
And be my everlovin' baby_

 _—O Brother, Where Art Thou_

  


The next day, they made for home with the windows open; it was hot as Hades by mid-afternoon, but the air was dry and the sunshine felt like a benediction as they flew across the plains. Dean had the music cranked, tapping along to the drum line on his thigh, on the steering wheel. It hurt more than Sam would have believed possible, but that was what he'd wanted, wasn't it? Doubt about what he'd done had set in the moment he'd opened his eyes, but seeing Dean like this, seeing him happy for the first time in longer than Sam could remember, was all the proof he needed that he'd been right.

He grinned into the wind and faked it for all he was worth until, somewhere around the Oklahoma border, he started to believe it. Maybe he hadn't ruined Dean after all. Maybe he could get over feeling like this, now that he'd had a taste of what he'd always wanted. Maybe they could go back to being brothers again. Anything was possible.

Then he looked sidelong at Dean, the gold dusting of hair on his arms, the way his eyes crinkled as he sang along with Paul Rodgers. Who was Sam kidding? He'd wanted everything from Dean all his life, selfish and greedy when it came to his brother, and he only wanted it more now that he knew what he was giving up.

He was always going to want Dean. He could live with that. It was worth a lifetime of feeling like this not to have to watch Dean tear himself apart.

They got home late in the afternoon of the second day. Katie spotted them first, and Sam watched her light up, watched the way the years fell away from Dean's face as Dean strode down the hill to kiss his wife and daughter. Everything in Sam told him he'd done the right thing.

* * *

Within a few days, he'd convinced himself that he could learn to be okay with things the way they were. Until then, he just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other and be grateful for what he had. He could be with Dean and not feel ashamed and guilty all the time. He could watch Dean with his wife and daughter and know that he wasn't going to be the one to take that away.

Whenever the dark sense of unease began to set in, Sam only had to look at Dean's easy smile and hear him laugh to feel it subside. He'd done what he'd done out of love. Maybe love was no excuse, but given the same choice, he'd make it again, and Dean would have done no differently, if their positions were reversed. Sam had been given more than he deserved, and one way or another, he'd make it be enough.

Summer unfolded in long, hot days that flowed one into the other. Katie grew. Julie got ever more pregnant, her second baby in no hurry to get born. Dean had been able to take a leave of absence from his youth counseling job at the residential group home, and went back to work within a couple of days. As for Sam's teaching position, they'd already filled it for the summer term, though they encouraged him to reapply in the fall.

One thing Sam knew: he wasn't ready to go back to hunting, if he ever would be. He felt out of place in his skin, and wasn't sure how far he trusted himself. He'd come too close for comfort to the darkness he'd thought he'd left behind.

Sam forced himself to count his blessings as the days passed. He lay awake at night, in his solitary bed, in his too-quiet house, telling himself all the things he had to be grateful for. When he and Dean ran in the mornings, he reveled in the feeling of being alive, whole, and healthy, with the rest of his life stretching out in front of him. Thanks to Dean, he had choices to make, possible futures he hadn't believed in for years. He'd have to find a job soon, but for now he spent his days babysitting Katie so Julie could rest, running errands and picking tomatoes and weeding Julie's flower beds, washing dishes on the nights when Dean came home early and cooked them all dinner.

Sooner or later, Sam knew he'd have to take a breather. It wasn't realistic to think he could go on spending his days in Dean's house, being part of his family, seeing Dean every day, and not reach a breaking point. He'd been in love with his brother for most of his life, and he knew enough to realize it wasn't something you got over. But right now, it did him more good than anything else could have, seeing Dean happy. Being a part of that.

It couldn't last. He knew it—everything that had ever happened to him had taught him as much. It was only that he wanted so badly to believe that it could.

* * *

"You could just move in, you know," Julie said one morning, watching Sam wash his hands at the sink, then take a cup from the rack and pour himself a cup of coffee. Aunt Lyd had taken Katie to the playground, and the house was quiet.

Sam did that thing where he ducked his head and blushed, and Julie thought, not for the first time, that it made him look about fourteen. Sometimes, it was tough to believe he and Dean had grown up on the same planet, never mind joined at the hip.

"You serious?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm serious. Why should you pay rent on a place you barely use?"

His face twitched. He didn't say anything for a moment, and she could practically see him planning a strategic retreat.

"It'd be kind of weird, though. Wouldn't it?"

He sounded as uncertain as he looked. Whether that was because he wanted to take her up on it and wasn't sure it was a good idea, or because he didn't know how to turn her down gracefully, she couldn't be sure.

She shrugged, and went back to working on her current batch of code. "I'm just saying, the room's there. It's not a coincidence. And it'd be cool with me."

She felt Sam looking at her, but pretended to be focused on work. It wasn't like she'd revealed any state secrets. Dean hadn't been subtle about why he'd wanted to build that room out over the garage, and Sam was a smart guy. She'd never pushed it, mostly because Dean would have killed her, but she knew Dean would love nothing better.

Most women wouldn't have been thrilled with the idea of having their brother-in-law living in their house, let alone a guy as troubled as Sam, but she'd had a long time to come to terms with how vital Sam's presence was to Dean's peace of mind. She'd watched her husband's estrangement from his brother eat away at the core of him, and seen the way he changed when Sam came back into his life. That was the man she'd fallen in love with. It was why she'd told Dean to go when he'd told her Sam was in danger, even though she hadn't really understood the nature of the threat. It was enough to see how terrified he was, and how desperate. She loved him too much, trusted his instincts too much to stand in the way of that—even if she could have.

She was determined not to let them throw away this second chance to work things out, though sometimes it was like talking to a brick wall. Two of them. Dean was worse, but Sam had mastered the self-sacrificing streak that was apparently a requisite part of being a Winchester, and he'd clearly learned from the master how to deflect conversation when he wasn't comfortable with the topic.

"Thanks," Sam said at last, his tone unreadable. "I'll think about it. How you feeling?" he asked then, proving her point. "You want me to make you some oatmeal?"

Julie rolled her eyes. "Go away," she told him, not looking up. "I'm working. Come back when you learn how not to change the subject."

Sam took her at her word, and after a long moment, he made himself scarce.

Julie looked after him, wondering whether she'd pushed him too hard. Sam had been quiet since he and Dean got back, careful around her, and around Dean, too, though he tried not to show it. Julie didn't think Dean had noticed, but she'd spent a lot more time with Sam these last few weeks than Dean had. God knew she was grateful for all the help. But for a guy who'd just been given a new lease on life, he'd been pretty subdued.

The baby kicked, restless. Julie laid a hand on her belly, and pushed herself up to go pee for the five hundredth time that morning. "Sure you don't want to hurry things up a little?" she murmured. Much as she didn't want to repeat the scare they'd had with Katie, she was beginning to appreciate the upside of a premature birth.

* * *

"Hey, sweetheart," Dean said, and kissed her on the cheek as he came in from work that afternoon. "Miss me?"

"More than words can say. You're home early. Everything okay?" He was supposed to get off at three, but he usually ended up stuck there dealing with one incident or another, and seldom made it home much before supper time.

"All good." He went to the counter to pour himself a glass of iced tea. "Where's Sam?" She got to her feet, and he came and put his arm around her, massaging her back.

"Upstairs with Katie. Thought I'd do chicken salad for dinner, if that's okay. It's too hot to cook."

"I'll eat anything, you know that. But you should let me do it. Go lie down on the couch and put your feet up for a while—you look beat." He seemed to think better of that. "Only in a sexy way."

Her eyes narrowed, and she leaned back. "Uh oh, now you're being too nice to me. What's up?"

"I need a reason to be nice?"

She chuckled. "Spill."

He pulled her close. "Nothin' babe. Just, I know today's a hard day for you."

Julie closed her eyes, and leaned into his embrace. Five years ago today, her sister Ella had been killed by a drunk driver. He'd remembered. Then she thought, of course he would. If anyone knew about losing family, it was him. "That why you came home early?" she asked, her face pressed into his shoulder.

"Nah," he murmured. He put his glass down and wrapped the other arm around her, too. "Didn't have anything better to do." She could feel his smile against her hair.

"Mmhmm." She let him hug her for a minute, then let out a sigh. "I might have screwed up, today," she confessed.

"Couldn't have been that bad, the house is still standing."

"Yeah, but Sam's been avoiding me all day."

He let her go, and Julie leaned against the counter, meeting his eyes. Dean kept his face neutral, but Julie could see a shadow of the old doubt. "Why? What'd you say?"

She tried not to let it sting. It wasn't personal, she knew that. Dean's kneejerk reactions when it came to his brother were so deeply imprinted on his psyche, he didn't even recognize them as unusual. She reminded herself that she wanted the same thing that Dean did: for Sam to be able to stop hunting, to be safe. To be a part of their lives the way he had been the last few months, not just drop in for a day or two once or twice a year. But when Dean looked at her like that, it was hard not to feel defensive.

"I asked him to move in upstairs," she admitted. "Told him it didn't make sense for him to keep paying rent when he's here all the time anyway."

Dean stared at her for a second. Then he paced a little distance away, and she couldn't see his face. "What'd he say?" he asked.

"He was worried it would be weird. Then he said he'd think about it. But he hasn't said two words to me since then, and I'm wondering if maybe I shouldn't have—"

He turned back to her, eyes troubled. "You meant well. Shoulda talked to me, though."

"I thought that's what you wanted."

"Yeah, it is, but—" He ran a hand over his hair. "Somethin's goin' on with him. I don't know what. Ever since we got back."

"I thought so, too. That's why I wanted to make sure he knew he was welcome here."

They stared at each other for a second. Then Dean stepped forward and hugged her again, his hand coming up to stroke through her hair. "You did good," he told her. "Whatever's goin' on with him, it's not your fault."

"So, what do you think it is?" she asked, holding him as close as her rounded stomach would allow.

He let out a long breath and rested his chin on her shoulder. "Wish I knew."


	9. Chapter 9

On a Tuesday afternoon in late August, the city bus Sam was on crapped out, stranding its passengers by the side of the road. He'd been coming back from the grocery store, or he would have walked the five miles home; as it was, he had two hundred dollars worth of food sweltering in four cloth sacks, and he figured he had about twenty minutes to salvage most of it. He tried calling a cab first, but they gave him a forty-five minute window.

"I'm sorry," he told Jules over the phone. "I wouldn't ask, but Dean'd kill me if I ruined his steaks." Dean had given him a hard time about refusing to drive on a fake license, but after everything they'd gone through to be able to use their real names, to have real jobs and social security numbers and the whole enchilada, Sam wasn't about to risk it.

"No question," Julie agreed. "Please, don't worry about it. I'm already putting Katie in the car. We'll be there in ten."

"Thank you," Sam said. "I owe you one."

"Shut up before you piss me off," Julie growled, and Sam grinned, feeling better despite the oppressive heat.

She made it there in ten minutes, like she'd promised. When he put the groceries in the back, she and Katie were singing along with one of Katie's favorite songs.

He got in the passenger side, turning to say hi over the back seat. "Hey, Katie-cat. How was your day?"

"Good," she answered, dark eyes wide and as gorgeous as ever.

He grinned. "That's good. Gotta say, I've had better. But it's looking up."

" _My_ day has been very, very long, in case anyone was wondering," Jules said, pulling away from the curb. "And if anyone happens to talk to this kid in my belly, would you please let him know I'd like to see his face some time this year?"

"He's ridiculous," Katie said, solemn.

"That's right, honey. Your brother is ridiculous. You be sure and tell him that."

"Runs in the family," Sam told Katie. "I know how you feel."

They stopped at a traffic light. Katie heaved a deep sigh. "Can you put on the story?" she asked.

"Please," Julie prompted.

"Please can you put on the story?"

"Which story?" Sam asked, reaching for the iPod.

"We're doing _Horton Hears a Who,_ " Julie said. Sam scrolled to find it. "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" segued into "a person’s a person, no matter how small."

"I'm sensing a theme, here," Sam said, and Julie snorted a laugh. The light changed.

"Think you'll ever have kids?" she asked, and Sam's smile faltered. He glanced over, meaning to divert the question by making a joke about never finding anyone who could live up to her—but when he looked in her direction, he saw the car coming.

"Watch out!" he shouted. He threw a hand out instinctively.

The impact jarred every nerve and bone in his body, a blow he felt in his sinuses. The other car hit them as Julie was moving forward; it struck them behind the driver's seat, impacting the rear passenger door, and Sam had time to thank God that Katie was on the other side—then the nose of Julie's car slid around into oncoming traffic, and a truck coming the other direction clipped the front bumper.

The airbags went off. Julie made a sound of pain, and Katie started wailing; the car rocked and stopped in its tracks, the head-on impact enough to halt their motion as surely as a brick wall. Sam heard the squeal of tires, and braced himself, praying that they wouldn't get hit again.

When they didn't, he turned toward Jules, trying to see how badly she was hurt. She moaned and sat crumpled forward, her arm curled against her stomach in a way that made sickening dread unfurl in his chest.

"Julie, hey. Hey."

Katie screamed in the back seat. The sound was strong, healthy, more scared than hurt, and a glance over the back told him that she was still secure in her car seat.

"Sam," Julie sobbed, sounding weak and terrified. "The baby. The baby. It hurts."

He laid a hand on her shoulder. "Okay, okay, I got you. You're gonna be fine. Everything's gonna be fine." He looked around, and saw that the other cars had come to a stop, that everyone had seen the accident and was getting out of their cars. The dark red sedan that had run the red light and struck them first was askew across the intersection, and the truck had stopped behind them. The elderly driver of the red car hadn't moved. Sam narrowed his eyes and scanned the scene, focusing all his senses, but nothing struck him as off. Nothing warned him that this was anything but what it looked like.

Sam had cracked his knees pretty hard against the dashboard, but he didn't think he was hurt in any way that mattered. He fumbled his phone out, dialed 911, and got out of the car. "I need two ambulances at the corner of Spruce and Front Street in Bradford. There's been a car accident. I'm not sure how many injured, but one driver is pregnant, close to term, and we have a two-year-old who may also be hurt."

Sam hurried around to Julie's side of the car. The nearest hospital was three miles from here. He opened her door carefully and crouched down beside her; he didn't dare move her. "Julie, listen to me. The ambulance is coming. I need you to take it easy for me, try to relax as much as you can, and hang in there until they get here. Can you do that for me?"

She nodded, though it wasn't as strong as Sam would have liked. She gave a low cry as another wave of pain struck her. Contractions? Sam wondered. He wrapped a hand around her wrist, feeling her pulse; it was fast and thready, her skin cold to the touch.

He brushed her hair back from her face, which was a mask of terror and pain. Her eyes were squeezed shut, tears wetting her cheeks. A bruise had started to come up on her temple. She had both arms wrapped protectively around herself. "We're gonna get you out of here, all right? You're gonna be fine. I gotta check on Katie, now, okay?"

She nodded again, and Sam gave her hand a squeeze.

He went around to Katie's door and opened it. She was still crying, hiccupping from fear, but he couldn't see any obvious bleeding or injury. He laid a hand on her head, stroking her hair and soothing her. "Katie, honey, listen to me, all right? I'm right here. You're okay." He checked her over as best he could without moving her, but couldn't feel any broken bones. He cupped her cheek, trying to get her to look at him. "Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Look at me. Listen to me. You're okay. Can you tell me if anything hurts? It's really important, Katie-cat."

She paused a little in her wailing, her face screwed up, awash in tears. Her screams subsided to sobs, her lower lip curled down and trembling. She shook her head.

"Your tummy okay?" he asked her. She nodded. He pressed gently at her ribs, her stomach, checked her arms and legs. When everything checked out, he soothed her with a gentle touch, palm spread flat on her chest where he could feel her heart rabbiting. "Listen, I gotta take care of your mom, okay? And I want you to stay right here and be a good girl. Sing your ABCs for me, can you do that? I want to see how many times you can sing them. I'm gonna go check on your mom, but I'm not going far, okay? I'll be right back." He heard her start to sing, her voice quavering.

He came around to the front again. Julie had slumped further down over the wheel and was fast losing consciousness. "Julie, hey," he told her, touching her arms gently to try and reassure her. "Stay with me, all right? It's gonna be okay. I'm right here." He checked her pulse again. It was alarmingly slow and fading. Shit. He was gonna have to move her; there was no help for it. It wasn't safe for them to stay in the middle of the busy intersection, and if it came to CPR, he couldn't do it here.

He pushed the deflated airbag down and reached to unbuckle her seatbelt as gently as he could. By the time he got it unhooked, she was unconscious. Moving with painful care, Sam slid his arms under her. He prayed he wasn't hurting her worse, and lifted her gently out of the car.

She was soaking wet when he got her into his arms. For a terrible moment, he thought it was all blood, and his stomach fell like a stone, but when he got her onto the grass at the side of the road and laid her down, he saw it was mostly clear fluid soaking her clothes. Her water had broken. There was blood, though, too, and Sam's heart turned over.

Sam took off his shirt and used it to cover her. He checked her pulse again, and was relieved to find it. "Hang on," he told her, "just a little while longer," and ran to get Katie in her car seat.

"Mommy," Katie cried, sobbing in earnest again as Sam brought her back and set her down, then knelt again at Julie's side. "Mommy!"

"You're all right," he told her. "It's okay. It's gonna be okay."

Shaking, he dialed Dean's number. As it began to ring, he heard the sirens coming.

* * *

Sam sat in the waiting room at the hospital, Katie on his lap and a well-worn copy of _Where the Wild Things Are_ spread out over Katie's knees. She pored over the pictures, her fingers tracing the lines while Sam read quietly to her and tried not to watch the door.

Almost an hour had passed by the time Dean finally came in. He'd been downtown at the courthouse, dealing with stuff for a kid at the Center who'd been having problems, and he'd had his phone off for the half hour he was there.

"Dean," Sam said, getting up as his brother came toward him. "Hey." He put Katie into Dean's arms without asking. Dean looked wild around the eyes. Sam didn't want to think about how many traffic laws he'd broken getting there.

"Sammy." He took his daughter and held her close, closing his eyes as he got his arms around her and kissed her hair. "Hey, baby, come here. You okay? Huh? You all right?" He hugged her tight to him and looked to Sam for confirmation.

"She's okay. Doctors checked her out, X-rays and everything. She's fine, man."

"Jules?" Dean asked, pleading in his voice. "The baby?" But Sam's expression told him it wasn't good before Sam could find the words. "No," Dean said. "No, no, no."

"She's with the doctors now. They're doing everything they can."

"Where is she? I gotta see her."

"Come on."

While the admitting nurse waited, Dean hugged Katie one last time, then put her into Sam's arms. His face looked awful in the second before he turned to go with the nurse. Sam watched as they disappeared past the doors toward obstetrics.

A few minutes later, Julie's aunt Lydia came through the same doors, looking ten years older than she had the last time Sam had seen her. She came over to Sam and took Katie's hand. Katie grabbed on to her thumb and started sucking her own. "Poor thing, she's exhausted," Lydia said, stroking her hair back from her forehead. "I should take her home."

"I'll do it," Sam offered. He glanced after Dean without meaning to, not wanting to leave him. But Julie was Lydia's niece, practically her own daughter. He should be the one to go with Katie. "I'll take her," he said. "You stay here with Julie."

But she shook her head. "It's better if you stay. It'll give me something to focus on, and Dean needs you here. You call me if you hear anything at all."

Relieved, and grateful, Sam said, "I will. I promise. Thank you." He transferred Katie into her arms, and Lydia took her easily.

Sam went back to the waiting room. The place was deserted, the lights low, as if soothing lighting could make the waiting any more bearable. The air conditioning chilled him in his thin T-shirt, and he chafed at his bare arms a few times, wishing he had another shirt to put on.

He sat in the chair at the end of a row and leaned forward on his elbows, taking out his phone. He wiped a hand over his face, then scrolled through until he found the name he was looking for.

"Bobby. Hey."

"Uh oh, that doesn't sound good," Bobby said, no less perceptive than he'd ever been.

"There's been an accident. Dean's okay," he said, though Bobby had probably figured that out already from the absence of blind panic in Sam's voice. "Katie, too. It's Julie."

"Aw, crap. How bad is it?"

Sam let out a sigh and rubbed at his forehead. "Bad enough. We're at the hospital. Her condition is deteriorating. They were talking emergency C-section, but they have to get her stabilized, first, and so far, that's not happening. She's bleeding internally, and they haven't been able to stop it."

"Well, shit, son."

"Yeah, pretty much."

Bobby was quiet for a minute. "How's he holding up?" he asked at last.

"I don't know yet," Sam admitted. "He just got here—he's in with her, now. But I'm scared, Bobby."

"Worst thing in the world, hospitals," Bobby said. "You hang in there. We'll be pulling for her."

"Yeah, I know you will. Thanks, Bobby. I just thought you should know, in case—"

"Now, don't you talk like that. Any woman who can put up with Dean has got to be tough. I met that girl, and she's a hell of a fighter. Don't write her off yet."

"I won't."

"Call me when you know something," Bobby told him, and Sam said, "Yessir," and ended the call.

A few minutes later, Dean came out of obstetrics, looking shaken. Sam stood up, every instinct on edge. "What is it?"

"She's having convulsions," Dean said, pale and helpless. "They kicked me out so they can try and stop it."

Sam felt helpless, too. He stared at Dean, wishing he could do something, anything. "Dean, I'm sorry. I tried to, you know, but it didn't work. I'm so sorry." After what had happened in New Mexico, it still felt wrong to even think about it, but he'd tried like hell anyway, kneeling in the grass by the side of the road. Maybe he'd been more successful than he thought at turning that part of himself off again, or maybe he'd been too panicked to find the focus he needed, because no matter what he did, she kept slipping away. It had been that day in the cabin with his dad all over again, _make the gun float to you, there, psychic-boy,_ and if Julie and the baby died because of it, he would never forgive himself.

"It's not your fault," Dean told him automatically, only half-listening.

 _Yes it is,_ Sam wanted to say. _If I hadn't called her, if I'd been driving_ — but he bit it back, because the last thing Dean needed right now was to worry about Sam's guilty conscience. "If they'd let me in to see her," he said then, low, "maybe I could try again."

Dean frowned, finally focusing on him. "What are you talking about?"

The more Sam thought about it, the more he thought maybe it was worth a shot. He'd fixed Dean's knee, and his own bullet wound without even meaning to. What good were those abilities, if he couldn't use them to fight for what mattered? And with Dean here—

"Come here," he said, before he could overthink it. "Come on, just do it." Sam pulled them down into two chairs in a corner, grabbed hold of Dean by the wrists. Dean looked worried, and more than a little dubious, but didn't stop him.

After a moment, Sam pulled off Dean's wedding ring, closed it in Dean's hand and wrapped his own hands around it. Closed his eyes. Dean tensed.

"Sam," he warned.

"Shut up. Please."

Sam had never tried to do anything like this from a distance. It was harder, so much harder than he'd thought, and the connection between Dean and Julie was strong, but the threads that bound Sam and Dean were something else entirely, a seductive and distracting song that threatened to make him forget himself. It took careful, painstaking effort to stay focused on what he had to. In slow increments, he spun himself out in gossamer silk threads, so thin the slightest breeze could dissolve him into nothing.

If it hadn't been for Dean's steady strength anchoring him, Sam couldn't have done it. As it was, it was a close thing; when it was over, Dean pulled him back to himself, saying Sam's name in a tone Sam couldn't ignore.

"Sam. _Sammy._ "

Sam blinked. He clung to Dean's arms, and the room seemed to move in a slow, sickening spin. He felt weak, dizzy, and for long seconds he was pretty sure he was going to throw up, or maybe pass out, or both. He swallowed it back and felt himself shaking.

"Hey. _Hey._ Come on, don't do this to me, man."

Dean sounded scared; Sam must have looked even worse than he felt. He forced himself to fix on Dean's eyes. "Dean."

It came out hoarse, his tongue thick. But saying Dean's name helped a little, and the black aura at the edges of his vision receded.

"What the fuck, huh? You tryin' to give me a heart attack?"

"I'm okay," Sam said, and straightened away from him with effort. He swallowed again, and tasted blood. Words were hard, but he made himself say, "Go check on her. _Go._ "

Dean gave him a long, intent look, but went. Sam wiped a hand under his nose; it came away crimson. Shaky, needing to move, he got up and headed down the hall until he found a door to the outside.

The shadows were getting long, afternoon wearing into evening. Hard to believe they'd only been here a couple of hours. Sam laid his hands against the rough brick, leaned forward on his arms and breathed deep, trying to get himself together.

He lost track of time; it might have been minutes, or hours, but eventually he was able to straighten up and breathe normally, the edges of his sense of self settling back into place.

He came back inside to find Dean sitting alone in the little waiting room, head in his hands. "What's happening?" Sam asked, dreading the answer.

But Dean looked up, and the look on his face was more angry than grieving. "What's happening?" he repeated. "That all you got?"

Sam stopped, taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"You know, it wasn't so long ago we thought this was gonna kill you."

Sam blinked. Dean was really, seriously angry with him. "Okay, listen. I told you, I'm fine. What's going on with Julie? Is she—?"

"She's in the OR," Dean said flatly. "The convulsions stopped, she's stabilized, and they're gonna go ahead with the C-section."

Sam sat down across from him, treading carefully. "So, that's good, right?"

"Would be, except for how you seem to think it's okay if we maybe lose you in the process, and it's _not,_ Sam. It's not okay." Sam reached out, laid a hand lightly on Dean's wrist to calm him down. Color rose in Dean's face, and he looked away, swallowing and clenching his hand into a fist. "I'm losing my mind here, man."

Sam wrapped a hand around his wrist and squeezed. "I know. We'll get through this. I'm fine, okay? No harm done."

Dean bit off a sharp, humorless laugh. He pulled his wrist out of Sam's grip. "Like I'm supposed to take your word for it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Dean stared at him for a long moment, then looked away. "Nothin, forget it."

"Dean, hey. Don't do that. Talk to me."

Dean shot him a pleading look, then, like he hoped Sam would prove him wrong. "I keep tellin' myself I'm imagining things. But ever since we got back, you been hiding something."

Sam tried to play it off with a disbelieving laugh. "What? That's crazy." But his heart started to thud dully, and Dean's expression said he wasn't fooled.

"See? I knew it. You are. And you act like you got one foot out the door—" Dean stood up, the strain of the day pushing him past the edges of his self control. "Man, I swear to Christ, I am so sick of this crap."

"Look, you're upset. I get it. But you gotta believe me, everything's fine. I swear. I'm not going anywhere."

It was at that moment that the pager they'd given Dean lit up. Dean gave Sam a look that promised this wasn't over, then turned and headed for the waiting room desk, Sam on his heels.

Julie's doctor met them at the desk, and Sam knew as soon as he saw the woman's face that it was good news. Even so, it took him a minute to believe what he was hearing when she said, "Your wife and son are doing fine, Mr. Winchester. The baby is healthy. Doctor Harper is finishing the surgery now. Your wife is still unconscious, but she's stabilized, and her vital signs are good."

Dean stared at her in disbelief. "She's gonna be okay?"

"We have every reason to think so. Honestly, we don't know why her hemorrhaging stopped, but her blood pressure is good, and the surgery went extremely well. Another half hour or so, and she should be out of the woods."

Dean let out a long, shaky breath. "Thank you," he said. "Thanks, Doc."

"You can see them, now, if you want."

"You sure? I mean, I can?"

"Sure can. Come with me, we'll get you scrubbed up."

She started back the way she'd come; Dean turned, and looked up at Sam. "She's gonna be okay," he said, relief spreading over his face. He sounded like he couldn't quite believe it.

"Yeah," Sam said, his own grin breaking. "Told you. Dad."

Dean gave a soft, disbelieving laugh. Then it broke, a sob escaping him. Without thinking, Sam stepped close and pulled him in.

Dean hooked an arm around Sam's neck, grabbed on to him without another word, and it was intense, a whole-body hug with Dean open and giddy with relief and gratitude. Sam had to slam his walls up fast, had to fight to hold them in their separate skins because his arms were full of Dean. All he wanted to do was stay there and bury his face in Dean's neck and feel it.

Dean pulled away at last. "Go," Sam said, like he wasn't one breath from doing something he couldn't take back. He clapped Dean on the shoulder. "I'll see you in the recovery room."

When he was gone, Sam moved in a daze to the closest chair and sat down hard. He held his head in his hands and tried like hell to get himself together.

He'd obviously been doing a shit job of keeping things under wraps. Dean knew Sam was lying to him, and he wouldn't let it go. Sam didn't know how he was supposed to fix it without telling Dean the truth. Maybe this sick obsession of his was going to come between them no matter what, because he seemed to keep reaching out for Dean in ways that he didn't even mean to. Mira Ramirez had talked about them being bound to one another, about Sam needing Dean to anchor him, but for the first time, Sam understood that somewhere in the last few months, he'd learned to tap into that without conscious intent. It scared him to have tangible proof of how much stronger his abilities were when he did.

He knew what he should do. He should walk out of here right now, leave before he screwed things up worse than he already had. But he couldn't bring himself to do that to Dean. Not after everything. They'd come so far, and he couldn't forget Julie telling him _he's not okay with this, no matter what he says,_ and _don't tell him you're sticking around unless you mean it._ He'd promised Dean he wasn't going anywhere, and as many times as he'd screwed things up between them, it was years since he'd openly broken a promise like that.

He looked down the hall in the direction Dean had gone. None of his choices were good. All he could do was ride it out, let the new baby distract Dean and buy Sam some time to get a hold of himself.

Feeling shaky, he went and splashed water on his face, looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. In a wave of phantom sensation, the memory came: Dean making love to him, Dean inside him, Dean's eyes locked on his. Dean telling him, _fucking love you._ Sam flushed hot all over. He hadn't let himself think about it since they'd gotten back, but now he could feel the echo of Dean's body against his when Dean had hugged him, could feel Dean's breath against his neck, making his skin tingle, his face feel hot. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his hands.

At last, he pulled himself together. He went back to the waiting room and did his best to keep from thinking for a while.

* * *

It felt like hours before the woman from the desk came and told him Julie and Dean were in the recovery room.

Julie was asleep when he came in. Dean sat next to the bed, holding the baby so the little guy could get some milk, stroking Julie's hair back from her face. "Hey," Dean whispered, a crooked grin quirking his mouth. The baby was red, and wrinkled, but he had a thick thatch of dark hair just like Katie had. He sucked strong and steady, his small hands curling in the air.

"Hey," Sam said, a great bubble of gladness welling up in his chest despite everything. "How are they?"

"Good," Dean said. "They're good."

"He's big," Sam said, nodding toward the baby. "He have a name, yet?"

"Have to ask Jules about that. Never did make up her mind."

Sam watched them for a while, emotion knotted up inside him. "I was thinking about going home to spell Lydia with Katie," he said finally. "Let her come up and see Jules and the baby."

Dean nodded. Then he gestured Sam over with a jerk of his head. "C'mere. You gotta check this guy out."

Sam stood behind his shoulder and leaned over, running a finger over the baby's head and between his shoulder blades. The little guy squirmed, but didn't give up sucking.

"Guess he takes after you," Sam said.

"You think?" Dean's expression shone with pure happiness, so profound it made Sam's heart hurt. He wanted to cry, to wrap a fist up in Dean's shirt, to bury his face in Dean's neck and hold on.

"Looks like you got everything under control, here," he said, and stepped away. Tears he couldn't shed pressed on his sinuses. "I'll get Lydia to bring you something to eat."

* * *

They'd moved Julie to a regular postpartum room by the time Sam came back early the next morning with Katie in tow. "She insisted," Sam told Dean, when Dean saw his daughter in Sam's arms. She reached for Dean, hands outstretched, and Dean took her.

Julie was awake, holding the baby while he slept. She looked tired, but happy. "She sleep okay?" she asked, glancing at Katie, whose eyes hadn't left the baby since they'd come in.

"Fine," Sam said. "How about you? How you feeling?"

"Like crap," she admitted, "but I'll live."

Dean asked Katie, "You ready to meet your little brother, kiddo?" She shook her head, and Dean chuckled. "Yeah, I know how you feel. They are more trouble than they're worth, sometimes. But trust me, you're gonna like this." He carried her over, and sat down next to Jules. He took Katie's small hand and wrapped the baby's smaller one around it.

"Did you decide what you're going to call him?" Sam asked her, to distract himself from the knot of feeling that pressed at his throat, watching Dean with his kids. _This,_ he told himself. _This is worth it._

"Robert John Winchester," she said, and smiled. "What do you think?"

Sam grinned, thinking of what Bobby would say when he heard. He checked out the baby's expression. His eyes were open, dark and wide on his sister's face. "RJ," Sam said.

"RJ! That's perfect." Julie looked at Dean, who glanced up with a nod of approval.

"Listen," Julie said then, and she sounded wiped out, but determined. She reached out and clasped a hand around Sam's forearm. "Dean told me what you did for me. For all of us."

"What? Hey, no, I didn't—"

She went on as if he hadn't said anything. "He told me how dangerous it was for you, and I know he wasn't exaggerating, because I saw how freaked he was. So, listen, I want to say something to you." She shifted, wincing, but held Sam's eyes with hers. "I can never thank you enough for what you did. My kids." She teared up, but after a second, she went on. "But we need you, too, and you better understand that. All of us. You remember that, okay? We wouldn't be the same without you."

Sam was embarrassed into speechlessness. Dean watched him with a grin playing around his eyes that just made it worse. "Better do what she says," he told Sam. "Otherwise? Gets ugly."

Julie reached up and tugged Sam down by his shirt, pushed his hair back and kissed him on the forehead. Sam was shaken by how it made him feel, how much he wanted to lay his head on her breast and let her comfort him. It made him think unexpectedly of Jess. He'd never made that connection before, but she did remind him of Jess, he realized. She made him laugh the same way, saw through him and Dean the same way.

"Now get out of here," she said, and pushed at his chest. "And take these people with you. How's a woman supposed to get any sleep around here?"

Sam, Dean, and Katie left her with the baby. Dean looked almost as tired as Julie had, and Sam could tell he was gonna crash hard before long. But he still radiated happiness, and a quiet calm that Sam wasn't sure he'd ever seen in his brother before.

Sam had lain awake nights telling himself it was worth it. Today, he felt it down to his foundations. He'd done the right thing. And for the first time, he was glad not just because of Dean but because of Julie. He wanted to do right by her, not just because Dean loved her but because she was family. And if that meant sticking around and finding a way to make this work, then he would, no matter how hard it got.

Morning broke over the trees as they crossed the parking lot. The Impala gleamed in the sun, and Sam felt a weight fall away from his heart, a feeling coming over him that he barely recognized.

Dean felt it, too; Sam caught his gaze for a second over the roof of the car. Dean's eyes were a vibrant green in the sun, his face rough with a day's growth of beard, his freckles standing out against his skin. Sam couldn't read everything behind that look, but it didn't matter. They were luckier than they had any right to be, and they both knew it.

"Hey, Sam," Dean said then. "What I said last night—I was outta my head, man. Wasn't making any sense."

Relief bloomed warm through Sam's chest. "Don't worry about it," he said, before he could stop himself.

"You doin' okay?" Dean asked, as he put Katie in her car seat.

"I'm good," Sam said, and he meant it. "You?"

The grin that broke over Dean's face answered any doubts Sam had ever had, about pretty much anything.


	10. Chapter 10

Five days passed before they let Jules come home. For Dean, they passed in a slow-motion haze that was half sleep-deprivation, half soul-crushing relief. He went from work to the hospital, spending as much time with Jules and the baby as he could. Julie’s aunt stayed at the house to take care of Katie and help get things ready, and Sam kept her company off and on during the day, accompanying her on errands, making calls to get Julie’s car fixed.

One night after Sam and Lydia stopped by to see Jules, Dean drove Sam home. He caught himself thinking odd thoughts on the drive. It was like, since he and Sam had gotten back, since Sam had done what he'd done, Sam and Jules had this connection, this comfortable understanding that changed the way they acted around each other. Not in a weird way or anything, in a good way. They'd always gotten along fine, but tonight, Dean had come back from the restroom to find Sam holding RJ and laughing, and Jules trying desperately not to, holding on to her stomach and taking deep breaths, saying "Shut up, goddamn you, I hate you," and Sam saying "Sorry, I'm sorry!" and trying to get it under control. It had made Dean's own stomach feel funny, seeing them like that, but it was a good feeling, one he wasn't sure he wanted to put a name to. He kept coming back to that moment when they'd all been together in the hospital, when Jules had kissed Sam on the forehead. The look on Sam's face, when he'd watched Katie meeting RJ for the first time. When Dean dropped him off, after, Sam had looked like he wanted nothing more than to go home with them.

"You're quiet tonight," Sam said when they were almost home. "Everything all right?"

"Sure," Dean said, slowing down to drop Sam off at his place. "Just tired."

"Better get used to that," Sam teased.

"Tell me about it."

Sam opened the door and climbed out. "Night, Dean," he said, resting a hand on the door.

"Night, Sammy. Sleep well."

Dean watched him go inside, and had a weird moment of dèjá vu. That seemed to happen a lot, lately.

He drove slowly home, thinking about how he was getting used to having Sam around all the time. He should be more careful about that. Sam still hadn't made up his mind about what he was gonna do next, and Dean shouldn't let himself start counting on the idea that a few months could change the pattern Sam had set long ago.

One thing he was sure of. He and Sam were better together with a family to watch out for than they ever had been on their own. Dean had known for a long time that was true for him, but it was true for Sam, too—anyone who knew him could see that. And, okay, the crap they'd been through, the way they'd lived their lives, Sam was deeper under his skin than anyone should be, but Dean was tired of fighting it. He wanted it all, dammit.

Despite how tired he was, he lay awake for a long time that night, his thoughts turning in circles trying to figure out what, exactly, he meant by that.

* * *

A week after Julie came home, she admitted to herself that she probably shouldn't have skipped the chapters on C-sections in the pregnancy books. What she would have done without Sam and Aunt Lyd, she couldn't imagine, because even after a week, she still needed help with the simplest things. At least she could pick RJ up, more or less, and nurse him without help, but that was about the extent of what she managed by herself. She still got tired easily, and had to sleep in a half-sitting position on the recliner.

Sam showed up every day around the time Dean left for work. He fed Katie, then spent most of the morning playing with her. He and Lydia took care of chores around the house, and took care of Julie, too, when she needed it. When she started taking slow walks around the neighborhood, trying to get her strength back, Lydia finally went home and it was Sam who stayed with her, keeping Katie entertained and watching to make sure Julie didn't wear herself out.

Sam had this thing with RJ that was kind of hilarious to watch. According to Dean, it was an understatement to say Sam had never been especially good with babies, but she and Dean had both noticed how the kid had attached to Sam right away. It seemed to be mutual. They both teased Sam about it, and he turned beet red, but didn't deny it.

"You do know there's no award for this, right?" Julie said, watching him change RJ while she sat in the rocking chair nearby. "They don't give out medals for best brother-in-law, last time I checked."

"Have to earn my keep somehow," he said, giving her a wry smile. "It's better than getting a job."

She raised an eyebrow, and cast a meaningful look at his current endeavor. "You sure?"

Sam finished with the clean diaper and laid a long, slim hand on RJ's belly. RJ kicked and waved his hands, his serene gaze never leaving Sam's face. Sam's smile made him look five years younger. "Pretty sure," he said. "And I'm gonna bet Dean would agree with me, right about now." The smile dimmed. He picked RJ up and settled him in Julie's arms so she could nurse him, then turned to leave the room.

"Hey, Sam. You thought any more about what I said?" Julie asked, her eyes on the baby. Sam stopped in the doorway. When he didn't answer right away, Julie looked up and met his eyes. "Come on, what's the big deal? It makes sense, and you know it. Unless you're planning on taking off?"

"No. Not— I wasn't. I'm not, I mean."

"So, then, what's the problem?"

He hesitated. "Don't you think it's kind of weird?"

"Weird, how?"

"I just, I feel like I'm intruding."

"You're kidding, right?" But he wasn't, she saw. "Well, trust me, you're not. I meant what I said at the hospital. And you know how Dean feels about it." He didn't say anything, but the twitch of his expression said he did. She sighed. "If you don't want to for some other reason, all you have to do is say so, and I'll shut up about it, I swear. But otherwise—"

"I'm scared it won't work out," he said in a rush. "That it'll get old, having me here, and it'll come between you two, and that's the last thing I want."

She nodded. "I get that. Believe me, it's the last thing I want, too. But I have a good feeling. I don't have that many people in my life I can count on, and I know that's true for you, too. I think that's worth a little risk, don't you?"

He looked at her steadily. She watched him wrestle with some unspoken conflict, then finally resolve it. "Okay," he said at last. "If you're sure."

She broke out in a smile. "Geez, way to make me work for it, Winchester."

His answering smile was a little shaky, like he wasn't quite sure what he'd gotten himself into. But when Dean came home that night and Julie told him, the look on his face told her it would be worth whatever it took to make it work.

* * *

In late September, Julie and Dean planned a neighborhood barbecue to celebrate RJ's one month birthday.

"Too bad it's too late to call it a _Labor_ Day party," Dean smirked, cracking open a beer while Julie and Sam made lists at the kitchen table. "Get it?"

"God, you're awful. Was he always this bad?"

Sam's eyebrows arched. "I don't really have to answer that, do I?"

"Come to think of it, no."

Dean leaned down behind Julie and wrapped an arm around her, peering over her shoulder. "Whose idea was it to let him move in here, anyway?" he complained. "All you two do is gang up on me." He gestured over Julie's shoulder with his beer. "Need more hamburger and buns than that, if you want to appease the ravening hordes."

He punctuated the comment with a playful bite at Julie's neck, and she let him get away with it, fighting a smile. They'd managed to have actual sex the night before, for the first time since she'd come home from the hospital, and Dean was in rare form. It had been a good month, despite the fact that none of them had slept through the night in weeks. After the close calls they'd had this summer, a little lost sleep didn't seem so bad.

On cue, RJ started fussing, and Julie let out a sigh. "I'll get him," she said, and moved to get up.

"It's okay, I got this one," Sam said. He was already out of his chair, heading to the fridge for a bottle. He had it warmed up in no time, and headed upstairs.

"Boy, you got him trained," Dean said admiringly, nuzzling her neck when Sam had gone.

"It's a gift."

There'd been a moment when Sam's eyes had met hers for a second that didn't sit well with her, though she couldn't have said why. But Dean's lips were soft and warm on her neck, and she put it out of her head.

* * *

The weather turned the day of the barbecue, a welcome cool front rolling in. They had a good turnout, most of the neighborhood stopping by, as well as Dean's friends from work, most of the moms and dads from Katie's play circle, and a couple of Julie's friends from yoga with their kids. Julie worked the grill, her skills having proven far superior to Dean's on several previous occasions, and Sam tried hard not to let the surreality of the scene get to him.

"We did good," Julie confided to him that evening, when he brought her a cold drink from the cooler.

"Yeah, we did," he agreed.

"You know what we should do next?"

"What's that?"

"We should plan a surprise birthday party for your brother." Her eyes were on Dean, who stood across the deck showing RJ off to a cluster of women who'd come with the guys from his work.

Sam was surprised into a laugh. "That'd be hilarious." He took a sip of his beer and glanced at her sidelong. "Oh, wait, you were serious?"

"Yeah, I'm serious. What? Bet he's never had one before."

"You're right about that. But who's gonna be responsible for what happens when a bunch of people jump out at him from a dark room?"

She considered. "Good point. Okay, maybe that wasn't such a good idea."

He suppressed a grin. It lit a spark inside him, that she assumed he'd still be there come January. "Could make it a regular party. Bet he'd get a kick out of that. One condition, though: no clowns."

"Deal."

For Sam, it was the last good moment of the evening. He didn't mean to have more than two beers, but the guys from the Center were glad to see him and pushed a third on him, then a fourth, telling him stories about the crazy shit that went on at work, the most recent drama and everything he'd missed since he'd left. He didn't drink much these days, and was past buzzed by the time Dean came to join them.

Dean was feeling no pain, either. "I'm tellin' you, Sammy, you miss all the fun," he said, slinging an arm around Sam's neck and leaning close. Sam got a lungful of his aftershave, and more of Dean's body heat than he wanted to.

Scratch that: more than he should have. Sam felt his face get hot, and a shiver of reaction in his stomach that scared the crap out of him. "Yeah, well, I'll live somehow," he managed, wondering how he'd gotten himself into this. He'd forgotten how grabby Dean got when he'd had a few, and why it was very important that Sam not let his guard down in situations like this. "Listen," he said, trying to shift his way out from under Dean's embrace without making it obvious. "I should go see how Lydia's doing. She might need help with the kids."

"Aw, Sammy, you are such a good baby daddy, you know that? And I used to think you weren't down with the whole kid thing. Who knew?"

Dean wasn't trying to be mean. Sam knew that. His whole manner was full of nothing but affection, his tone proud, like nothing made him happier than having Sam living in his house, helping take care of his family. He beamed up at Sam like he was the best thing Dean had ever seen. But the way the other guys looked at them, smiles masking the flicker of doubt in their eyes that said it wasn't quite normal, that there was something off about it—Sam felt it like salt in hidden cuts.

"Yeah, that's me," Sam said, shrugging out from under Dean's grasp without waiting for a better chance. Dean stumbled slightly and a look of confusion flickered over his face.

Sam didn't stick around to explain. He got the hell out of there, and strode down the steps to head back to the house. His head spun, and his stomach didn't feel too great, either.

At the kitchen door, he turned back for a second. What made him do it, he couldn't have said. Maybe he felt Dean's eyes on him; maybe he needed to reassure himself that everyone wasn't staring after him. He felt like he'd accidentally ripped off his skin and let the truth show, like in the middle of that scene of wholesome suburban bliss, everyone might look at him and see at once how messed up he really was. Like all his efforts to make things work, to fit into Dean's family in some way that wouldn't tear them apart, had been stripped away in a second, and he was one mistake away from bringing Dean's whole life crashing down in ruins.

Nobody was looking at him. If Dean had sensed anything wrong, he'd dismissed it already, maybe filing it away with all the other times in their lives that Sam had acted like a freak by his standards. He was laughing with the guys, and none of them seemed to be giving Sam a second thought.

It was then that Sam's gaze shifted, and caught. There was someone watching him, but it wasn't Dean. It was Julie.

* * *

Sam hid out in the house as long as he could, but the temperature kept dropping, and the party wound down after another hour or so. He and Julie cleaned up while Dean put the kids to bed. Sam imagined that he felt her eyes on him every time he looked away.

"So," she said, when the silence had gone from strained to outright excruciating. "Want to tell me what that was all about?"

Sam stopped and closed his eyes, his back to her. His breath came too fast, his nostrils flaring as he tried to keep calm.

"Hey," she said. Her hand found his arm, closing gently around it.

"Don't," he told her, his voice tight, and she let him go.

"Look at me. It's okay."

It was anything but. He tried to tell himself she didn't know what she was talking about, but when he stole a glance at her face, that reassuring lie dissolved like so much smoke. She knew.

"It's not what you think," he said before he could stop himself. But he might as well have spelled out and confirmed every suspicion in her eyes.

She paled. "Oh, God," she said. "Of course."

Pressure closed around his heart, unbearable. "Is it that obvious?" he asked, when he could find words.

She sat down heavily at the kitchen table. "If it is, I didn't see it. But maybe I should have." He watched as she pieced together a hundred moments, a hundred tiny tells that finally added up in her head. "That day you guys came back to see me, after Dean got hurt. I knew that was your idea. But you kept looking at him like he was the one leaving."

He remembered that day. He'd watched Dean in the rearview, and up until the moment he'd pulled onto the highway, he hadn't been sure he could do it. For the first few days after he left, he had to force himself to remember Dean self-destructing after Dad died—Dean dying in the hospital, Dean alone at a crossroads selling his soul for a year with Sam—to keep himself from turning around.

She asked gently, "When did you know?"

He laughed, a sound as bleak and desperate as he felt. "Long as I can remember."

"Oh, Sam." He stole a look, saw her empathy and understanding and the way she hurt for him. Apprehension and dismay, but no revulsion; no condemnation. He looked away, his eyes burning.

"He can't know," he got out. "He gave up everything. Our whole lives." He looked up. "Are you going to say anything?" he asked, the one thing he had to know.

"No. I won't. That's between you and him." Seeing his distress, she said, "But there's not much he won't forgive when it comes to you. You get a full-access pass as far as Dean's concerned. You have to know that."

He wanted to believe her. But she didn't know that the one thing he'd done was the one thing Dean might never forgive.

"No." He shook his head. "I can't fuck this up again. I can't." As soon as he said it, resolve crystallized in him with painful clarity.

"Sam, wait," she said, but he was already halfway to the door.

* * *

"Babe."

Dean looked up, raising a finger to his lips. In his crib, RJ slept with that singular Zen attitude of his. Julie gestured, and Dean followed her out into the hall. "What is it?" he whispered.

"It's Sam," she said, and saw him straighten up, his eyes go sharp.

"What happened?"

"He's okay. But I think you better go talk to him."

By the time Dean made it outside, it was too late. Sam's car was gone. Dean came back in, the lines of his face drawn in confusion that hurt her to look at. So many things were clear to her now, and she couldn't believe it had taken her this long to see them.

"Did he say anything to you?" he demanded.

"No, nothing," she said without hesitation. "But he hasn't driven that car in two months."

"Yeah, I'm aware." Dean rubbed his hand over his mouth. "What the hell got into him? He was acting weird earlier, too. You sure he didn't say anything?"

She shook her head. "Nothing useful, anyway." Nothing she was willing to repeat. It wasn't hers to tell, and it never had been. "Maybe you should call him?"

"Probably won't answer," Dean said, but he tried anyway, then grimaced when it went straight to voice mail. "Dammit."

"He'll be back," she told him, hoping she was right. "He will. Trust me."

Dean didn't look so sure.

* * *

It wasn't a good night. None of them got much sleep; RJ fussed, and Katie woke up at five with a nightmare that Jules had to talk her down from. By quarter to six, everybody was up and cranky, and Sam hadn't come home.

At six thirty, Dean's phone rang. Dean picked it up on the second ring, and Jules held on to Katie's plate to keep her from banging it, shushing her.

"Sam?"

"Hey," Sam said, and Dean let himself breathe for the first time in hours. Jules had tried to tell him it probably wasn't anything serious, that Sam would call, or show up the next day, but Dean had been kicking himself for letting Sam get away with whatever secret he'd been keeping. He'd known for weeks that there was something Sam wasn't telling him, and he hadn't done a damn thing about it, and now Sam had disappeared without so much as a word.

Hearing Sam's voice, matter-of-fact and calm, like it was no big deal, made his anger spike. He'd been imagining the worst, torturing himself with ridiculous scenarios half the night, and he felt like an idiot for it, but that didn't stop them from forming in his brain.

"Hey? That's all you got? What happened to 'I'm not about to drive around on a suspended license, Dean,' huh?"

There was a pause, as Sam absorbed Dean's anger. Jules frowned and shot a quelling look at him, and Dean got hold of himself and forced himself to take a breath. "You okay?" he made himself ask.

"Yeah, Dean, I'm fine." Dean heard him swallow. "I'm sorry, I should have said something before I left."

"Woulda been nice."

"You know, I am actually a grown-up, last time I checked."

"Yeah, well. Coulda fooled me." Great, he told himself. Way to make him want to come home. "So, what's going on? What's so important you had to tear out of here without a word to anybody?"

"Nothing," Sam said too easily. "Just needed some space. It happens."

Dean paced across the kitchen, cradling the phone to his ear. His eyes flickered to Jules, but she kept her eyes on Katie, focused on getting her to eat her breakfast. "Uh huh. Why don't I believe you?"

"Dean, it's no big deal. Don't freak out on me, all right? I swear, I'll be home in a few days."

"Where you going?"

"You sound like Dad." Sam obviously thought better of that, because his next words were in a reconciliatory tone Dean knew too well. "Look, I just needed to get away for a couple of days, that's all, and Ellen said she could use a hand with something. I told her I'd help her out. Seriously, it's nothing. I'll be back before you know it."

"It's a hunt?" Dean asked. He felt Jules turn her eyes to him, and a knot tightened in his chest. "This thing with Ellen?"

"Maybe," Sam admitted. "Looks like. But just a couple of spirits, nothing to worry about. Bobby's on another job down south, and Ellen said she could use me, so I'm gonna head up there. Keep me from getting rusty, right?"

Dean fell quiet, doing his best to listen to the spaces between Sam's too-casual words. If Sam thought he was fooling anyone, he was delusional, but what could Dean say? Sam was a grown man, and if he wanted a break from suburbia, from babysitting Dean's kids 24/7, what right did Dean have to stop him? None, was the answer to that.

"Dean, trust me, okay? Everything's fine. I just need a few days."

"Well, then, take care of yourself, I guess," Dean said, a leaden sensation coming to rest in the pit of his stomach. "Give Ellen a hug for me." He closed his eyes and pictured Sam behind the wheel of his car, a fake license in his wallet and fake registration in the glove box, no clothes save the ones he'd been wearing, no weapon save whatever he'd stashed in the gun box in the back.

"I will," Sam said, and then, "You take care, too. Hug everybody for me."

The line went dead, and Dean remembered all the conversations just like it they'd had over the years. All the times Sam had told him he was fine, and given Dean no choice but to take his word for it. Dean had thought they were past this. He'd really started to believe it.

He couldn't bring himself to look at Jules. Seeing her understanding right then was more than he could take.

* * *

A few days turned in to five, then six. Julie kept her thoughts to herself. She'd told Sam she would, and she was willing to give him a chance to deal with the situation himself, up to a point. But it was tough to remember that when she had to watch Dean closing up like he had when they were first married. That first year had been the worst of their marriage, and she hadn't been sure at the time whether they'd get through it. There'd been so many things she hadn't understood back then, or hadn't wanted to.

She knew it wasn't normal for a guy to want to keep his brother with him all the time the way Dean did. It wouldn't even occur to most guys. She and Ella had been close, but she'd never imagined a life where they would live together, work together, spend as much time together as a person would spend with their own partner. With Dean and Sam, she'd always thought it was because of the way they were raised, the life they'd led before they met her. But maybe it had always been more than that.

She'd had no idea, when she'd asked Sam to move in here, what she was asking of him, but he'd been trying like hell to make it work, for Dean—for all of them. For that, and for everything she owed Sam after the last few months, she was willing to cut him some slack. They were family, now, too, and she cared about him for his own sake, not just Dean's.

On a rainy Monday afternoon more than a week after the barbecue, she'd gotten both kids down for their naps when she heard a car door. A glance out the window of Katie's room revealed Sam's hybrid, covered with mud and boasting a broken headlight.

She met him at the kitchen door. One look at him and she could tell the hunt had gone badly; he looked like he hadn't slept or showered in three days, and he moved with the careful deliberation of a man in pain.

The rain pattered against the porch roof in heavy, echoing drops. "Hey," she said, as he stopped a few steps away.

"Hey, Julie," Sam said. He sounded as exhausted as he looked. "Is it okay if I...?"

She opened the door wider. "Honey, you live here. Come in. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. Everything's fine." He did as she asked and came in, then stood stiffly, dripping muddy rain onto the mat.

"Ellen?" Julie asked.

"She's okay. Will be, anyway. Bobby's with her." He swayed, and she reached out, letting him lean on her.

"You're dead on your feet. Are you hurt?"

He looked sheepish. "Stitched it up pretty good, but I think I might have pulled a couple of them."

"Come upstairs," she said, instead of helping him up to his own apartment. "That way I can hear the kids if they wake up."

He resisted at first, but gave in when she insisted, stripping off his boots and outer layers and letting her help him to the bathroom at the top of the stairs. When he shrugged out of his shirt and peeled back the bandage taped to his ribs, she sucked in a breath. "What happened?" she asked, digging for a pad and antiseptic to clean the four parallel gashes that had separated skin and muscle.

"Don't ask. My own fault—guess I was rustier than I thought."

He was half asleep by the time she got him cleaned and bandaged up. The pulled stitches oozed a little blood, but not enough to try stitching them up again. He still needed a shower, but he needed sleep more, so she ignored his protests and put him in their bed. When he was out, she called Dean.

* * *

"Stupid son of a bitch," Dean said, but he kept his voice low. He stood in the doorway with Jules, watching his brother sleep in their bed, getting graveyard dirt and God knew what else all over their sheets. Sam's soft snores filled the room, and did more to calm Dean down than anything had in a week.

"That's pretty much what he said," Jules told him, leaning against him with her arm around his waist.

"Yeah, well, he's right, for once."

She squeezed him in a one-armed hug, and Dean tried not to make it obvious that he was so relieved to see Sam back and in one piece, he barely knew what to do with himself.

"Come on," she said, tugging him toward the stairs. "He'll be out for a while. Let me make you something to eat."

Sam slept through dinner, and he was still sleeping when they put the kids down. "Looks like the couch for you tonight," Jules teased, pushing Dean down onto the one in the living room.

"Can't believe you put him in our bed," Dean complained, wrapping his arms around her hips and tugging her close. "What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking he's way too big for me to carry, that's what. You should have seen him, babe. I thought he was gonna face plant on the floor when he got here."

"You shoulda let him," Dean said, though he didn't mean it. She felt good, soft and warm, her breasts heavy and smelling faintly of milk. It shouldn't have been as much of a turn-on as it was, but Dean always had been a bit of a perv.

She laughed. "Are you kidding? We'd be tripping over him every five minutes. Have you seen the size of him?"

"Good point. Well, anyway, thanks," Dean told her, and that part, he meant. "Glad you were here to look out for him."

"It's no trouble," she said, angling his face up between her palms. "I like having him here. I told you that."

"Yeah," he said, "but you didn't sign on for this."

"Sure, I did." She kissed him, her mouth warm and sweet. "What's a few stitches among family? You just wait until Katie gets her first snowboard."

"Oh, God," he groaned. He wrapped his arms tight around her, pulling her down onto the couch with him, careful to be gentle. She'd mostly healed up, but he knew her incision still hurt her sometimes. She settled on top of him with her thighs against his hips, and he wound his hands in her hair and kissed her, putting his heart into it.

"Nice," she said, breathless, when he finally let her go. Her smile lit her up, and he thought she'd never looked sexier. "What was that for?"

"You know what," he told her.

Her expression said she did. She sat back, her weight resting comfortably on his thighs. "Told you he'd come back."

"True enough. Guess I should listen to you, huh?"

"Looks that way." She traced his cheek with her thumb. "There is something I want to talk to you about," she said, then closed her hands over his at her waist and slid them up under her shirt. "But it can wait."


	11. Chapter 11

Sam didn't run again. It wasn't easy to look Julie in the eye, but she didn't push him, and in some ways it made things easier, having someone to watch his back—to cover for him with Dean when he needed a break. They became unlikely allies, and he did his best to make it up to her in every way he could.

Dean and Julie's anniversary fell in late October. The trees were in full color, the oak out front a brilliant gold and amber in the setting sun as Sam watched their cab pull away. It was the first real night out they'd had together since the baby was born.

Around seven, Sam put Katie to bed and settled in to read with RJ on his chest and a beer resting between his thighs. He fell asleep like that; Dean and Julie found him there hours later when they stumbled in early, laughing and happy, Julie carrying her shoes in her hand. Dean's color was high; Sam could tell they'd been messing around in the back of the cab like teenagers.

"You are never gonna guess what happened tonight," Dean told him, voice pitched low. "Not in a million years are you gonna guess."

"Well, then, what's the point of guessing?"

"No, seriously, come on. Guess."

"I give up." Sam took RJ upstairs, Dean trailing after them.

"We're sitting there at dinner, and my phone rings, right? And it's Bobby's number, so I answer it. Only it's Ellen on the line."

"Uh huh?" Sam carried RJ into the nursery. The kid was out, and barely stirred as Sam laid him in his crib. Dean leaned in after him and smoothed the hair on the back of RJ's head, then put his favorite toy where he'd see it if he woke.

"So guess what she says?" Dean said as they left the room.

Sam paused at the top of the stairs. "Oh, no way."

"Yes, way. Ellen and Bobby!" Dean crowed, his grin breaking over him full force. "Called it, man! Called it in one."

Sam gave a disbelieving laugh, and couldn't help his answering grin. "That's awesome. So how long's this been going on?"

"I don't know, a while. Long enough that they're pretty sure it's a thing, I guess. Ellen said it was our anniversary present."

Sam headed down the stairs, Dean a few steps behind. "Hell of a present," he said. "Did she say anything else? Does Jo know?"

"I assume so. They didn't seem too shy about it—well, Ellen didn't, anyway. You shoulda heard Bobby. Threatened to shoot me in the face next time he saw me if I so much as said I told you so. Pretty hilarious."

Sam chuckled. "I can imagine. That's such great news, though. I'm happy for them."

"Oh, you told him already!" Julie said, returning from the kitchen with a tray of tequila, glasses and limes. "I wanted to see his face."

"Sorry, babe," Dean said, not sounding very apologetic. "It was too good. Couldn't help myself."

"It's like you're five," she complained, but she was smiling, and Dean saw it and stepped in to kiss her.

"You know you love it, so don't act like you don't."

The kiss lingered, turning into a second, and Sam realized belatedly that he'd been watching a little too long. He cleared his throat. "I'm gonna head to bed, guys. Happy anniversary."

Dean broke away and looked at him with that relaxed, happy, hopeful little boy expression Sam was powerless against. "Come on, Sammy, stay and have a drink with us. Just one, man. To celebrate."

Sam glanced at Julie. She looked hopeful, too, like Dean wasn't the only one who really wanted him to stay. "Yeah, okay. Sure," Sam said. It was never easy, being around Dean when he was like this, but no part of him could resist the chance to bask in it a little—even vicariously.

Dean's smile made it worth it. "Awesome. Do your thing, sweetheart," he said to Julie, who had learned to make drinks from a friend who'd done a stint as a bartender.

Dean put Aerosmith on the stereo, keeping it turned low. One drink turned into two. They laughed, and talked about the future, about getting season tickets for the Pirates in the spring, about how old RJ would have to be before they could take the kids to Hersheypark or the Grand Canyon for the first time. Julie complained about the baby weight and Sam and Dean assured her that she looked amazing, which was true. The soft blue wrapped dress she wore emphasized all her curves. "All those vitamins," Dean growled, and bit her neck, grinning at Sam as he did it.

Once or twice, Sam caught Dean looking at him with a rush of affection and pure happiness and it made him feel things he was careful not to name. He drank more than he should, laughed more than he had in a long time. Just when he was thinking he should go to bed before he slipped and let his guard drop, Dean exchanged a look with Julie that Sam couldn't read. It went on for a span of seconds that should have been a warning, but Sam registered it too late, didn't give it enough weight, buzzed and relaxed as he was.

"Yeah?" Julie murmured, and Dean's voice was husky, his eyes bright when he said, "Yeah."

Julie got up. She moved toward Sam, and when he looked up at her, she met his eyes with a long, steady look and an expression that was both warm and expectant, both careful and mysterious.

She held out a hand. When he didn't immediately react, one corner of her lips turned up, a self-deprecating smile that seemed to say, humor me. He put his hand in hers, uncertain.

He wasn't sure what he expected. For her to pull him to his feet, maybe, to ask his help with something. But instead she closed her fingers around his and sat on his lap, her warm curves fitting easily into his body. She slipped her other hand in against his neck, a gentle touch, but too intimate. It made gooseflesh rise on his skin. Months since he'd been touched, and the warm weight of her felt good, an involuntary shiver starting when her fingertips slid into the hair behind his ear.

For a second, he thought it was a mistake, that maybe she hadn't meant to. But then she drew her thumb down in a slow, soft stroke against his pulse, and he saw the expression on her face, a mix of hope and warm regard and uncertainty he couldn't take for anything but an invitation.

Sam's heart sped up. "J—" Every instinct told him to look at Dean, but he was terrified to.

"It's okay," she said. "Just... give it a minute, okay? Take a breath." He didn't know what expression was on his face, but everything in him set off warning alarms. His hand trembled in hers, and she held it steady, squeezing. "I didn't tell him," she murmured, for his ears only.

It took a few seconds for that to sink in. When it did, he met her eyes, his own widening. She nodded imperceptibly. But if she hadn't said anything—

Then Dean said, "It's okay, Sammy." Sam finally looked at him and saw that Dean was scared shitless, but that he knew what he was doing. He'd _thought_ about this. God help them both.

Panic coiled like a snake in Sam's belly. He looked back at Julie, and it didn't help. She looked like she was all in, like this was something she really wanted. But she didn't know the truth—neither of them did. Sam thought he might be sick. All the consequences he'd foreseen, all the guilt and doubt he'd felt for what he'd done, and none of it had been as awful as the kind of betrayal it would take for him to let this happen. He wanted it so bad he could feel his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest, and nothing could touch the wild, crazy hope that fought to drown out the voices of conscience and reason.

Julie still held on to his hand, a steadying anchor, like this was somehow okay, like it was something he could have. She was the best friend he'd had since Jess died, and her touch made him feel human, real and alive in a way he hadn't in months.

He closed his eyes for a second and swallowed. You can't, he told himself desperately. You know you can't.

"Sam, look at me," Julie murmured, and he did, wetting his lips because his mouth had gone dry.

She took it as encouragement and leaned in. Before he could stop it, her mouth was on his, a tentative kiss that deepened into a slow, searching exploration of lips and tongue that made the blood run hot through his body, unsteady shivers fluttering in his stomach, because he could feel Dean's eyes hot on his skin and it did terrible things to him, thinking about Dean watching them.

He hadn't been with anyone since Dean, and Julie's mouth was sweet and gentle, persuasive as hell. It took everything Sam had to make her stop, to hold her still, hands locked gently but firmly on her arms. He realized with sinking shame that he was breathing hard, flushed with helpless arousal.

Dean's eyes were bright when Sam made himself look over at him. They mirrored the fierce current of excitement and hunger running through Sam's veins. Dean looked like he wanted to come over there, and was stopping himself by an effort of sheer will, trying to be patient. Sam could barely process that. All he wanted was to forget everything, to believe in the fierce, irrational hope that told him he could have this, that he could let this happen and it would be okay. It would be better than okay.

The thought was enough to make him lift Julie off his lap and set her on her feet. He got up and put three feet of space between them; he stood there unsteadily for a second, the tequila making his head spin, his balance deserting him.

"Hey, easy," Julie said, and reached out to steady him. He took another step back.

"Don't," he said tightly. "Please."

Dean rose to his feet. "Sam, wait a second." He came closer, and Sam's panic ratcheted up a notch.

"No." He raised a hand before Dean could say anything else. "You don't— you don't know what you're asking." He forced himself to look at Dean with some semblance of reason, though he was desperate to put distance between them before he did something worse than what he'd already done. "Trust me, you don't."

"Yeah, I do. We both do. Look." Dean swallowed, his Adam's apple jerking. "I know it's crazy, okay? I do."

Sam gave an unsteady, bitter laugh, hysteria threatening to get the better of him. "Crazy? That's an understatement." He looked at Julie, apologetic. "J, I'm sorry. I know you meant well. And believe me, I want to. But I can't. We can't." He backed away another couple of steps, looking from Julie to Dean and back again, pleading with them both. "You have to trust me on this."

"Sam," Dean said, but Sam couldn't let himself hear anything else, not while every part of him was singing with possibility. He fled.

* * *

  


Dean stared after him for long seconds. "Great," he said at last, his heart sinking. "That went well."

Julie sank down into Sam's chair. "Babe, I'm sorry. I thought for sure."

"Not your fault. This was my stupid idea. What the fuck was I thinking?" He started to pace, then stopped and faced her. "I gotta go talk to him."

"You sure? Maybe he needs time to think things through. We did kind of spring it on him."

Dean shook his head. Sam had gone up to the garage apartment, at least, not straight out the door, but that didn't mean much. Dean found it all too easy to imagine him packing up his stuff, or sitting alone up there freaking out until he did leave, for good this time.

"No. I let him stew, it's gonna be worse."

"So, go after him. But take it easy on him, okay?"

Dean leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, stroking her hair. "I will, I promise. Thank you. Seriously. For everything." He tilted her face up and kissed her on the lips, and he couldn't help the quiet thrill he got, remembering what she'd looked like kissing Sam. No way that should have affected him the way it did, but the feeling was so strong, he couldn't deny it.

She kissed him back, mouth soft, the tip of her tongue brushing his lips, and he groaned. He was still stupidly turned on, and it took effort to make himself stop. "All I want to do is take you upstairs and do bad things to you," he confessed. "You're incredible, you know that?"

"All or nothing, babe. I'll still be here."

He pulled back and looked at her. "Still think this is worth a shot?"

"You tell me."

They held each other's eyes for a long moment, the question open. "Yeah," Dean said at last, feeling it deep down. They'd looked damn good together, Jules and Sam, but more than that, it had felt right. Not to mention turning him on more than he would have believed possible.

He straightened up, getting himself together. "Yeah, I do. As long as you're okay."

An impish smile quirked one corner of her mouth. "Oh, trust me, I'm good. You have _seen_ your brother, right?" He flushed, and his eyebrows flew up, but before he could protest, she nudged at his hip and pushed him toward the stairs. "Go. We can fix this."

He hoped like hell she was right.

* * *

  


"Sam, come on, dammit. Open the door." Dean leaned against the doorframe, half-tempted to bust in anyway. It wouldn't be the first time he'd shoved his way through a barrier of Sam's meant to keep him out, but something told him forcing the issue this time would be a mistake. "I'm not drunk enough for this," he muttered to himself, resting his head against the door. Louder, he said, "Look, we both know I'm not leaving until you talk to me, so quit screwing around."

He waited. At last, the door opened. Sam stood on the other side, his eyes bleak, his expression unreadable.

"Dean, it's late."

Dean shouldered his way in, forcing Sam to step back. "It's not that late. And there's no way I'm going to sleep until you talk to me, so you might as well start."

"Me?" Sam's temper flared. "What about you? Seems like you're the one trying to tell me something, only hell if I know what."

"Don't you? I thought we were pretty clear."

That gave Sam pause, but after a breath, he recovered. "You, me, and Julie. What, am I some kind of anniversary present? Jules wants to walk on the wild side, and you figure Sam's desperate enough, he won't mind—"

"Hey!" Dean cut him off, taking an involuntary step forward. "It's not like that, and you know it. And watch how you talk about my wife."

"Do you even hear yourself?"

Dean felt his face heat. "Stop trying to piss me off. You know it's not like that, so don't pretend to be all outraged. You know I wouldn't do that to you."

Sam looked away at that, his expression going stony. But Dean saw the panic beneath the veneer of anger, and his heart missed a beat. Sam was scared to death, he realized. But he hadn't said once that he didn't want this. It scared the hell out of Dean, too, but the idea of losing Sam scared him worse. "You do know that, right?"

It hadn't occurred to him until this moment that he'd had this whole thing wrong. He'd watched Sam and Jules together these last few months, and he'd seen the way they clicked. Ever since RJ was born, he'd slowly come to terms with how much he wanted to keep all of them together, a real family. He could practically taste it. He'd waited until tonight to talk to Jules about it, and been so psyched that she was open to the idea, he'd barely been able to think about anything else; the whole ride home in the cab, he'd been crazy with it, on edge and nervous as hell, but so sure it would work out. Jules had tried to tell him they should go slow, talk things out first, but he hadn't listened. He was an idiot. "Sam?"

"Yeah."

"Look, I get it. I shoulda talked to you first. Look at me." Reluctantly, Sam did; Dean took a step closer, feeling his pulse speed up. "You're right. I shoulda talked to you."

Sam's eyes flashed. "You think?"

"Sammy," Dean said. His throat closed around it. The way Sam was looking at him made all the blood in his body run hot. "Don't let the fact that I'm a jerk get in the way of something that could be great, man. Talk to me."

Sam struggled visibly for a minute. When he spoke at last, his voice was tight, controlled, like if he let himself step off the path he'd set for himself, he'd break. "Dean, listen to me. Go back downstairs. Go celebrate your anniversary with your wife, 'cause this is not happening. You get me? Whatever it is you think you want, whatever perfect little arrangement you think the three of us can have? It's not possible."

"Why? Because you think I don't know what it feels like to want something you shouldn't? You think I'd want this with anyone else but you? I get it, okay?" Dean's heart was pounding, now, as he skated close to a truth he hadn't admitted even to himself. "Aw, Christ, fuck it." He stepped in without letting himself think about it, pulled Sam's head down and pressed his mouth to Sam's with blunt force.

He didn't know what he hoped to prove. Maybe that Sam wasn't the only one with something to lose. Maybe that he had the guts to follow through on this thing, no matter where it took them. What he didn't expect was for Sam to give way under his hands like Dean had cut him down at the knees.

Sam made a pained sound, shuddered, then broke away and put a hand against Dean's chest, keeping him at bay. He looked more like Dean had stabbed him than kissed him, his face flushed, his eyes closed and his breath coming short. Even Dean had to admit it wasn't much of a kiss, but his body didn't seem to care; the shock of reaction was intense. Was it like that for Sam, too?

Sam must have been able to feel Dean's heart racing. He met Dean's eyes, and his expression cut deep: guilt and longing, anger and regret, but all of it secondary to a bleak despair that made Dean's stomach clench. "I can't," Sam said simply. It looked like it cost him, but he let his hand fall and stepped back.

Dean felt like he'd been sideswiped by a bus. None of this was how he'd pictured it, and it hit him hard that by trying to have it all, he might have jacked things up beyond all repair. "Okay," he said, because it was the only thing he could say. "Okay, man. I hear you. I'm sorry."

Sam gave a soft, bitter laugh. "Don't be." He turned away, scrubbing his hands through his hair. "I swear, it's not you. It's me."

Sam hadn't said anything about leaving, but Dean wished more than anything that he could take all of it back. What the hell had he been thinking?

"I just thought—"

"It doesn't matter," Sam interrupted. "We all had too much to drink. Let's just forget it, okay?"

"Yeah, okay, but—" Dean swallowed against the lump in his throat. "Sam, are we okay?" He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, but he had to ask.

Sam looked at him, and his expression made Dean's stomach hurt. "Don't ask me that right now. We will be, I swear. But I need you to trust me, and leave it alone for tonight. Can you do that?"

"Yeah. Of course, man. If that's what you want." Dean cleared his throat. "So, I'll go, then." He looked at Sam a minute longer, feeling like there was something he could have said or done differently. But Sam's refusal had sounded final, and Dean was afraid of what would happen if he pushed Sam any harder. _I need you to trust me,_ Sam had said, and there was only one possible answer to that.

Dean did as he asked. _For tonight,_ Sam had said, too, and Dean clung to that.

* * *

  


Sam didn't sleep that night. He lay awake picturing Dean and Julie making love, torturing himself with what might have happened if he'd let himself reach out and take what they'd offered.

Whatever connection Mira Ramirez had sensed between him and Dean, it was still there, stronger than ever. Ever since the hospital, he'd known that. The healing, the brief flashes of telepathy—even the telekinesis had only happened when he was in close proximity to Dean, focused on him to the exclusion of everything else.

Tonight, Dean had put his hands on Sam, and it was like that night in the woods all over again when Sam had first kissed him, first let him see how Sam felt about him. Only this time, instead of _I missed you,_ it was, _can't lose you, be with me on this, Sammy._ It took everything Sam had not to cave, not to give him anything he asked.

He wished he knew what was going on in Julie's head. She'd seemed so sure. For weeks, she'd kept Sam's secret; he'd known it wouldn't last forever, but she'd blindsided him tonight. She was a smart, strong woman who knew more about him and Dean than anyone ever had. He couldn't believe she'd do something like this out of pity, or cruelty. She'd know better. Did she really believe the three of them could work? What would she think if she knew the truth?

Morning came before Sam was ready to face either of them. He got up before dawn and went for a long run, pushing his body hard enough to make himself stop thinking. He ran until he couldn't, then walked the four miles back to the house, shivering, sweat cooling on his skin. It was a gray October day, and a cold wind chased over his neck, slipped in at his collar. It took half an hour under a scalding hot shower to feel human again, and when he was done, he fell into an exhausted sleep.

It was early afternoon when he woke. If he'd dreamed, he couldn't remember it, but his head was quiet, his thoughts clear. He'd done the unforgivable out of love, because he couldn't stand to see Dean lose his family again. But life didn't work like that. He and Dean had made choices, together and separately, and they had to face the consequences. No matter the reasons, he'd been lying to them both for too long.

God knew, it would be easier to leave. But he'd run from the truth long enough, and it was past time he did what he could to make things right.


	12. Chapter 12

Sam waited in the passenger seat of the Impala for Dean to get off work. Dean spotted him, and Sam saw him hesitate for a fraction of a second, then stride across the parking lot, shoulders set as if he were readying himself for a fight.

Dean opened the driver side door and leaned in, his expression hard. "If you're here to tell me you're taking off, then get out of the car so I can knock some sense into you, because I don't want to hear it."

"Might change your mind after you hear what I have to say."

Dean frowned, but he got in and shut the door. "I'm listening."

"Not here. Can we go somewhere?"

Dean stared at him for a moment. At last he shook his head and started the car.

They drove in silence. Sam bounced his leg with nervous energy, then tried to stop it by pressing a fist into the thigh muscle. A couple of miles down the road, Dean turned in to a deserted lakefront park. He parked in the gravel lot, turned the car off, and waited.

The words had been right there on Sam's tongue when he'd left the house, but they deserted him now. He bowed his head, and spread his hands flat against his knees. His palms were sweating despite the chill.

"Well?" Dean demanded.

Sam swallowed. "Last night, when you kissed me." Saying it made his heart beat faster. "It wasn't the first time."

"Excuse me?"

Sam risked a glance at him. "I know it sounds crazy. But just listen." He stopped.

"Sam, I swear to Christ, if you don't spit it out—"

"We had sex, okay? You and me." Sam's cheeks burned. "More than once."

"Sex." Dean stared at him. "This your idea of a joke?"

"It's no joke, Dean."

"Good, because I'm not laughin'."

"You don't remember it, because I— I made you forget."

He felt Dean's silence like a slap, a sharp impact ringing in his ears.

"Say that again. You _made_ me forget."

It took everything Sam had, but he didn't look away. "Yes."

Dean let that sink in. He looked about as sick as Sam felt.

"Dean, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Guilt and shame flooded him, but Sam forced the words out. "If I could take it back, I would, I swear."

"That's what you were hiding. All this time." An angry flush had risen up Dean's neck. Without warning, he got out of the car and paced a few steps away. Sam climbed out after him.

"Dean—" He closed the distance, hoping Dean would take a swing at him.

Dean shook his head wordlessly. At last he turned on Sam and demanded, "When?"

"When what?"

"You know, when did we—?" Dean made a gesture between them.

"When we were on that road trip. And once before that."

"And, what, you... whammied me into forgetting all about it?"

"Pretty much." Sam swallowed. "Dean, you never wanted it. It's because of me. It never would have happened if you hadn't thought I was gonna die."

Dean stared at him. "Jesus, Sam. What the fuck is wrong with you? I fuck up—by epic proportions, from the sound of things—and you think it's up to you to make it okay? You can't."

"I know that. I _know,_ all right? Believe me, I've had plenty of time to think about it, and I get how messed up this is."

Dean shook his head in disbelief and wonderment, and Sam plunged ahead, desperate. "It's not fair, man. You sacrifice everything for me. I couldn't let myself destroy everything you'd built here. I couldn't." Sudden tears choked him. "I know that's no excuse. I didn't know what else to do!"

Dean had gone pale. He took an angry step toward Sam. "You talk to me, that's what. You don't mess with my head. You don't go around making me _forget_ something like that, for fuck's sake!"

"I know. I do. But you gotta understand, it was killing you. It was going to tear you apart if I didn't do something. You wouldn't let me go. I had to. And then afterwards, you were so happy. You were _happy,_ man. You should have seen your face."

"You—" Dean broke off. "Jesus Christ, I don't even know where to start." He wiped a hand across his mouth and paced some more. "Is that it?"

A soundless, disbelieving laugh escaped Sam. "Isn't that enough?"

Dean stopped with his profile to Sam, shoulders hunched defensively, and Sam watched him try to digest it. "So we— what? Got drunk one night and messed around? Sucked each other's dicks? What?" The flush spread over his cheeks.

"You really want to know?"

"Not really, but now that it's out there, yeah, I want to know the details. You think I want to wonder about it for the rest of my life?"

Sam looked up at the sky for a minute, despairing. A pale sun hid behind gray clouds, bleak and cold as he felt. "I can show you," he said at last.

"Excuse me?"

Sam made himself look at his brother. "I said, I can show you. Give you your memories back. If you're sure you want me to."

Dean stared at him for a long moment. "You're serious." He began pacing again, more slowly this time. Sam waited. At last, Dean turned on him. "Yeah. Yes, I want you to." He stopped where he was and closed his eyes, tense.

"Right now?" Sam's voice cracked.

"Right now. Come on, lay it on me."

Butterflies jumped in Sam's stomach. It was the right thing to do, but he was scared of himself, of how bad he wanted this. He'd wanted to slip in under Dean's edges again ever since the first time he'd done it, months ago. Dean didn't know what he was asking.

Sam moved closer before he knew he meant to, elation singing dangerously in his chest. Even now, even knowing what Sam had done, Dean trusted him, and knowing that made Sam forget to be afraid. Dean might never speak to him again after today, and it'd kill him as sure as a knife to the heart if that happened, but right now Dean was about to let him in, for a few minutes at least, and it was all Sam could think about.

He made it as far as laying a hand on Dean's bare forearm before it hit him, what he was doing, and terror stopped him. Dread and longing trembled through him in equal measure. "Dean—"

"Do it, Sam," Dean ordered. Sam could feel his apprehension, his determination. Dean had never run from anything in his life, least of all Sam. He stood braced and ready and unafraid.

Sam closed his hand around Dean's arm, holding on. Dean felt so good. The heat of him, his easy strength. Sam's other hand found Dean's shoulder, slid up to curve against Dean's neck. There, God, _there._ Sam slipped in so easily, it robbed him of breath, and he felt Dean gasp and tense against him.

It wasn't the same, with Dean awake and aware; it was better. More intense, the force of Dean's personality hitting him like a blow to the chest. For what felt like forever, Sam floated in the heady place where he couldn't tell where he ended and Dean began, and Dean's soft groan, the sudden weight of him leaning against Sam, said it was good for him, too—better than good. They shouldn't have done this standing up, Sam thought, and could barely spare attention for it. He was too busy fighting the sudden welling up of hunger, desire, the need to possess and take and own.

This must be what it was like to be a demon, he thought. This hunger, this feeling of free-fall. This desire for possession that had very little to do with sex and everything to do with owning another person, body and soul.

More than just another person—Dean. Dean, whose _self_ he'd violated, who'd asked him to give back the truth Sam should never have taken from him. Who trusted him, even now, with everything that made them who they were.

This is why, he told his brother, on some level he couldn't even name. And he let Dean see. Opened up the dark, ugly truth of his heart and let him see. _Because I can't turn it off when it comes to you. There's something wrong with me. Sooner or later, us being together was gonna tear you apart._

Sam let him see everything. When it was done, he forced himself to let Dean go. It cost him to do it, and that in itself was a warning he couldn't afford to ignore.

Dean fell back to lean on the fence railing, and Sam forced himself to take a step backward, his head throbbing dully with the effort it had taken. They didn't speak for a minute.

"Dean, I'm so sorry," Sam said at last, when he couldn't take it any more. "I thought I could fix things. But I screwed up, I know that." Defeat lay heavy in him. "I just made things worse."

"Yeah, no kidding." Dean sounded faint with the weight of sudden knowledge.

Grief and regret welled up hard in Sam's throat. "I've been so scared for so long. I know you probably never want to see me again, but I swear. I swear if I could go back and do it over again—" He swallowed, miserable. "But I can't, and now I'll never know if it was just me, if I made you—"

Dean looked at him then, at last. His voice came rough when he said, "Shut up."

"What?"

Dean pushed himself off the railing. "Shut up, okay? Just stop talking. There's nothing you can say that's gonna fix this." At the look on Sam's face, he rolled his eyes and said, "Come here, you moron. Jesus." Dean closed the last step between them and reached out, pulled Sam down by the back of his neck, shaking him and then holding on. "You're gonna fucking kill me, you know that?"

Sam let out a gusty breath. The ground reeled under him. His hand came up and fisted helplessly in the back of Dean's shirt.

"Listen to me," Dean ordered, emotion thick in his voice. "For the record? It was never just you. And if you ever pull that shit again, I will end you, with my bare hands if I have to. You hear me?"

Sam held on to Dean like the world depended on it, every part of him humming with how good it felt, how desperately he'd missed Dean's touch. How much he loved his crazy, idiotic brother who forgave him too easily and loved Sam too much for his own good. "Yeah," he managed. "I hear you."

"And if you ever— _ever_ —-use your freaky mind powers again without telling me, I swear—"

Sam let out a choked sob. "I won't. Swear to God."

Dean held on tighter. He nodded, and Sam felt like he might shake himself apart. Dean finally said into Sam's shoulder, "What the hell were you thinkin', huh?"

Sam couldn't stop the rush of tears. When he could speak again, he said, "I thought you'd hate me. I thought you might never speak to me again."

"Yeah, well, that's 'cause you're an idiot. But I think we established that."

"You're right, we did." It came home to him then that Dean remembered everything. How they'd been together, the things they'd said, the promises they'd made. The way it felt when they kissed, when they fucked, when they slept in the same bed.

At last Sam pulled back and looked into Dean's eyes, intent. "I'll do whatever it takes. Whatever I have to. And if that means you want me to disappear, or never talk about this again, I'll do it, but I won't let you give up your family. Not for me."

"Such a goddamned drama queen," Dean said. "Did it ever occur to you that it's not up to you?" At Sam's confusion, he shook his head, impatient. In the next instant, he leaned up and pulled Sam's head down, his lips parting and the tip of his tongue flicking out to wet them.

Sam closed his eyes. His lips sought Dean's without his conscious will, gravity inevitable. Their mouths opened and met in a deep, intense, heartfelt kiss that rocketed through him, making his heart pound and his breath come short. He clutched at Dean as if that could keep him from falling, but he was helpless to fight the wave of feeling that came with the fierce, tender demand of Dean's mouth on his.

"Dean," he managed when his brother let him say anything again. It locked up in his throat.

Dean pushed Sam back against the car, putting three feet of space between them. "You gonna shut up and listen to me, now?" At Sam's look of confusion, Dean shook his head, impatient. "Nothin's changed, Sam. Same place we were before, only worse. If it was just sex? I'd say, fine. We fucked up, we walk away, we do whatever we can to fix this, end of story. But you and me..." His ears reddened. "I still love Jules. I do. I love her a lot. But I think I've been in love with you most of my life, and it's only gonna hurt everybody worse to pretend otherwise."

Sam's breath caught. A denial lodged itself in his throat, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. Dean didn't flinch, didn't back down from what he'd said. Sam felt everything inside him curl up tight in self-defense, scared to let himself believe it.

Dean grimaced. "Don't look at me like that, man. It's obvious to anyone who ever met us, how fucked up we are about each other. You think I'd forgive half the stupid stunts you pull if I wasn't outta my head over you? It's always been that way. And I'm sorry I never told you that. I should have."

"But if I hadn't started it, you never would have done anything. No way you would have."

"And if I hadn't pushed things, you never woulda let it go as far as it did. Doesn't matter any more, what would've happened. It was gonna kill me anyway, one way or another. Maybe I woulda died of old age never knowing why I was so messed up about you, maybe me and Jules woulda fallen apart and I'd never know why. Maybe you woulda got yourself killed on some hunt, and I woulda slowly gone crazy trying every fucking day not to eat my gun." The image of Dean killing himself made Sam's insides twist up into a painful knot, but Dean plunged ahead. "The point is, we can't go back."

Sam nodded shakily. "What do you want me to do?"

"Well, for one thing, I want you to quit acting like this whole thing is your fault and it's up to you to fix it."

"Dean, it has to be. They're your kids, man. She's your wife."

"Yeah, and she's a grownup, and she loves the hell outta both of us. Last night, you know what she said to me? She said we wouldn't be the same without you. She said she couldn't imagine us without you any more." At Sam's expression, Dean's lips twisted. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we've trusted her with a hell of a lot when it comes to our screwed up issues, and she hasn't exactly run screaming. She deserves the chance to decide what she wants."

Sam gave a disbelieving laugh. "So, what? You think we should just... tell her the truth, and hope she forgives us?"

"Pretty much."

Sam stared at him. He was serious, Sam realized. Scared to death, but he meant it.

"Dean, that's—"

"Crazy? Yeah, probably. But I don't see any other choice. Doesn't matter if you leave again, or if you stay and we keep our hands to ourselves for the rest of our lives, I'm still gonna want it, Sam. I'm still gonna feel this way. I don't know much, but I do know that. How long you think it's gonna be before she figures it out?"

Sam swallowed hard. It did scary things to him, hearing Dean talk like that. Hearing him admit this wasn't something he planned to get over. "Me too," he confessed, his heart beating too fast in his chest. "I'm still going to. If I could have stopped, believe me, I would have."

"Yeah," Dean said, his voice going rough and the blush spreading across his cheeks. "So if we're gonna work this out, we gotta do it together. You, me, and Jules."

"What if she can't?" Sam said in a rush. "Can you live with that?" Dean might have mostly forgiven him, but would Julie? When she found out what he'd done to Dean, she might hate him. She might be scared of him. She might never want to see his face again, or let him near her kids, and Sam wouldn't blame her. But if she felt that way about Dean, if she couldn't stand to look at either of them after this—

He saw that work its way through Dean, the full meaning of what they might be signing on for. What it would be like to give up his kids, the woman he loved.

"There's things I can stand, and things I can't," Dean said at last. "I won't lie to her again. And I won't pretend I know how to let you go. I never did, Sammy. I tried, more than once, you know that, but that's not how I'm wired. What about you?"

Sam weighed that as carefully as he knew how. Dean took his breath away, the way he'd worked through all this with such self-honesty. Back when, Dean never would have been able to admit any of this, not to himself, and certainly not to anyone else. His brother had come a hell of a long way in five years, and Sam thought he probably had Julie to thank for a big part of that.

"Yeah," he said at last. "It won't be easy, but yeah, me, too. No more lying. And no more running."

Dean gave a short, sharp nod. "Okay, then," he said, and that was how they decided.

* * *

  
[ ](http://seacouver.slashcity.net/bigbang/a_difficult_conversation.jpg)   


Sam, of course, wanted to come in with him. He should've been a nun, Dean thought, the sick obsession he had with confessing his sins.

"Me first," Dean told him, knowing it wouldn't be fair to Jules to have to face both of them at the same time. "If she doesn't haul off and shoot me, you can have your turn."

Dean waited until the kids were asleep, then followed her down to the kitchen. Cold dread rested in the pit of his stomach. He knew Jules had made a certain peace with the way things were between him and Sam; they wouldn't have ended up here, otherwise. Hell, he probably wouldn't have married her in the first place. But it was a long way from knowing Dean was more than a little fixated on his brother to finding out they'd been screwing each other behind her back.

"What's wrong?" she asked, when she got a look at his face. "You okay?"

It wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, easy. He kept it short and to the point, told her the essential facts, and only as much detail as she asked for. Told her he loved her, and that he hoped she could forgive him, but that if she couldn't, he'd understand. Told her he loved Sam, too, and that wasn't going to change.

She cried, and that was the hardest thing to take. He'd only seen her cry twice in her life, and never like this, silent and still, the tears tracking down one after the other. When he'd finished, she wiped her face and went to the kitchen window. "God, I'm so stupid."

"What? No. Babe, no. How could you have known? I didn't."

She shook her head, but didn't say anything.

"Please, say something."

"What am I supposed to say?"

"Then throw something at me. Kick me in the nuts. Something."

Julie finally looked at him, and Dean forced himself to face up to that look even though it killed him to do it. "Think it would help?"

"Might make me feel better," he admitted. He tried to get a read on her, but he didn't think he'd ever seen that exact expression before. She was looking at him like she could see inside his skull—maybe like she was trying to suss out how she'd ever thought marrying him was a good idea. "Look, I know how bad this is. Believe me, I get it."

"Let me ask you something," she said, "and I want you to be really honest about this."

"Anything." His stomach wound itself into an even tighter knot. Her calm, even tone was starting to freak him out.

"What's your best-case scenario? I mean, what was it you were hoping for when you came in here?"

"Honestly? That you'd understand I didn't mean for this to happen. That you'd be able to tell me some way I can try to make it up to you."

Anger flickered over her face at last. "Well, I do understand that first part. I get that it wasn't about me."

Dean didn't think it was possible, but hearing her say that made him feel worse. Because of course, she was right.

Heat pricked at his eyes, and he swallowed. "Babe, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that you had to get mixed up with somebody like me. I'm fucked up, I know that." Emotion clogged his throat, and he had to stop for a second. "This whole thing is fucked up, and it's all my fault. I hurt the two people I love, and I can't take that back."

"Two people? You sure about that?" Her voice came harsh.

"Yes," he said without hesitation. "I'm sure. I love you. Always will."

Her eyes shone. "That's good to hear."

Hot shame burned in Dean, the tears spilling hard. She stepped close and put her arms around him, and Dean choked back a sob and buried his face in her neck, holding on. She held him close, one hand against the back of his head.

"Hey. Hey. Shh."

"I'm so sorry."

When he'd cried for a while, she said, "It hurts. I won't pretend it doesn't. But it's not like this whole thing's the biggest shocker in the universe. I do actually know you, remember?"

"What?" He pulled away and wiped his face, trying to get himself together.

"You think I didn't wonder what would happen if you ever had to choose between me and Sam? I came to terms with that before we ever got married. I thought I did, at least, and I decided to marry you anyway. So, yeah, I get it. Doesn't mean I have to like it." She sighed. "You're not the only one who fucked up, here."

"Sam feels worse than I do, if that's even possible."

"I'm not talking about Sam. I'm talking about me." She put some space between them, then leaned against the counter and shook her head. "Last night. I never should have pushed things like that. I got carried away. It was such a good night that I acted like we could skip past the hard stuff and go straight to the part where I'm so awesome, I can make everybody happy. Poof, magic sex will make all our problems go away." She made a noise of self-derision. "I knew it was a bad idea, and I did it anyway."

He scratched at the back of his neck, wry. "Yeah, that probably wasn't our best move."

"Understatement."

"So what do we do now?"

She looked him in the eye, her gaze level. "Well, you're right about one thing. This is definitely a fucked-up situation. What do you want to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's a simple question. Haven't you thought about it?"

"Well, not— I mean, I don't want it to be over between us."

The corners of her mouth quirked. "That's kind of vague, hon. Want to be more specific?"

His face heated. "I want us to make this work. You and me."

"And Sam," she finished for him.

"Yeah," he said at last. "I guess, I mean, yeah. But I know I don't have the right to ask that. I wouldn't ask that of you, unless—"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. You're right, you don't have the right."

"I know. Babe, I know that. But I'm trying to be honest." He stepped closer, and when she didn't shy away, he squeezed her shoulder, stroking her neck with his thumb. "What about you? What do you want to do?"

She gave him a long, steady look. "Right now? I want Sam out of my house, and I want you to go make up the couch downstairs, and let's all take a breather. We have two kids to think about, so I'm not doing anything without thinking it through first, and I have to stop being pissed as hell at both of you before I can do that. You get me?"

"Sure, I hear you. Of course."

"I need time. I think we all do."

Dean nodded. He stepped away and let his hand fall. It was more than he'd hoped for, and better than he deserved. For a long time, he hadn't believed that someone like him could have a real family, a home. You let yourself count on anything, especially family, and you could screw it up—he knew that better than anyone. But something in her face made him think maybe there was hope. It went against every fiber he had to let himself believe that, but he couldn't help it.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothin'. It's just, I love you, you know? I can't believe you're even still speaking to me."

Her lips curved in a sharp-edged smile that hurt him to look at. "Yeah, well. I always was kind of dumb when it came to you."

* * *

Sam took Jules at her word and was gone within the hour, barely looking Dean in the eye and without the chance to say good-bye to the kids.

Later, when she got over being angry all the time, Julie dealt with her share of regret about that. In the months afterward, she had plenty of time to think about the circumstances, about what it must have been like for Sam all those years. About the way he'd tried so hard to take the blame for everything before he left, and how good things had been when he was there. About the fact that he'd saved her life, and RJ's, at risk to his own. It would have been easy to tell herself he'd done it out of guilt, but she knew better.

In the beginning, though, things were rough. She tried to think rationally about everything. She'd played a part in the mess they were in; she understood that. She loved Dean. She loved Sam, too, in his own way. But after a week of walking on glass, Dean came home from work one day and she lost it on him. He dragged her outside so the kids wouldn't hear, and that was the last straw. Some of the things she said, she wasn't proud of. At the end, she cried, not quietly. He pulled her into his arms.

"We should talk to someone," he said, when she finally wound down.

"What?"

"Babe, you need to talk to somebody about this stuff." He swallowed. "Maybe I do, too." It was the last thing she expected him to say; it was the one thing that could have convinced her he meant what he'd said about making it work.

* * *

Sam went back to San Antonio. He showed up on Mira Ramirez's doorstep, and the dogs welcomed him as if they'd been waiting for him. "About time," she told him, and gestured him inside.


	13. Chapter 13

_Four months later_

Dean poked his head in the kitchen door, a smudge of charcoal on his face and more on his hands. The tantalizing smell of slow-roasting barbecue wafted in with the cold February air. "You sure he said six?"

Julie hid a smile. The Steelers hat he wore pulled down over his ears made him look even more like a little kid than his Christmas-morning expression. "I'm sure. And yes, I'll tell you if he calls. Why don't you go take a hot shower while I watch the coals?"

Dean kicked slush off his boots and left them outside. "Thanks. You're the best."

"Don't wake the baby, okay?" He kissed her on the cheek, then came in for a more serious kiss on the mouth before disappearing upstairs.

Julie watched him go. She'd thought she was ready for this, but she had to admit to a few butterflies of her own.

* * *

She was the one who'd called Sam first, two weeks ago, while Dean was at work. It had taken her days to work up to it, and when he answered, she'd almost second-guessed herself.

"What's wrong?" Sam asked when he heard her voice. "Is he—?"

"He's fine," Julie said. "We're all fine. That's not why I called."

"Oh." Sam swallowed, the sound audible.

"How about you?" she asked, before the awkward silence could get any longer. "How are you doing?"

"Me? I'm— Things are good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Getting my head on straight, I guess?" He hesitated. "I've been pretty messed up."

"Dean, too," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed, his voice rough.

The way he said it gave her hope. A few months ago, he would have blamed himself, would have tried to take responsibility for everything that had happened. Maybe he was making progress, too.

"Listen," she said. "Dean and I have been seeing somebody. A counselor."

He gave a soft laugh of disbelief. "Dean, my brother, Dean?"

She grinned. "Believe it or not, it was his idea."

"You're shitting me."

"I'm not."

He took a few seconds to absorb that. "How's it going?" he asked at last, like he wasn't sure whether he had the right.

"It's going. I think..." She drew a deep breath. "I think we're gonna get through this."

Sam didn't say anything. After a minute, Julie said, "You still there?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm here." He cleared his throat hard, and she realized he was fighting tears. "That's really good to hear. I'm glad."

Her throat closed, too, and she swallowed back tears of her own. "Me, too."

They fell silent for a minute. Julie closed her eyes, and thought about her husband and his brother. About everything they'd been through together, and how far they'd come. About how hard Dean had been trying to make things right with her, and how badly it was hurting him not to be able to talk to Sam, to see him. To know how he was doing. She held hard onto the phone.

"Sam, listen. I called because I wanted to tell you, it's okay if you want to call here. Really, I mean it. I know it would mean the world to him."

Sam was quiet for a long moment. His voice sounded higher than normal, a little boy's, when he said, "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Thank you," he said at last.

"Shut up, you're gonna make me feel like crap."

"Julie. Seriously. Thank you."

She rolled her eyes. No wonder he'd had Dean wrapped around his little finger all his life. These two were gonna be the death of her.

"Don't thank me, just call him. Okay?"

"I will."

Ten days later, she'd come downstairs to the sound of Dean's low voice in the kitchen. She didn't have to ask who he was talking to.

He glanced up when she walked in. His color rose, but she didn't let herself react. He and Sam had talked half a dozen times since she'd told Sam it was okay, and he was a different person. Things were better between her and Dean, too. While she waited for RJ's bottle to heat, she looked out at the snow melting in the back yard, and thought about the person she'd been before she'd met the Winchesters. About what that girl would have said, if she could see Julie now.

A lull came in the conversation. Julie didn't let herself second guess the gut-level decision that made her reach out and lay a hand over Dean's, covering the mic on his phone. "Ask him if he wants to come home," she whispered.

Dean looked at her like she couldn't be serious, but at her expression, his eyes went wide and hopeful. "Ask him," she insisted.

It wasn't the life she'd imagined. But, she thought, maybe it could be better.

* * *

Julie turned the brisket one last time and closed the lid, then headed upstairs to get RJ. Lyd would be back soon with Katie, and Julie couldn't wait to see the look on her daughter's face when she saw Sam. They hadn't told her he was coming, just in case. Katie had been a mess for two solid weeks after Sam left, refusing naps and acting out, waking up with nightmares from which she couldn't be consoled.

"Hey, little man," Julie said, waking RJ and lifting him out of his crib. He was six months old this week, and growing fast. He might be taller than Dean when he grew up, the doctor had told them, and Julie could believe it. "Oof, you're heavy," she told him, and kissed him on the forehead, breathing him in. His hair tickled her nose. As she always did, she thanked the whatever high atop the thing for the miracle of her son, alive and healthy, and for her own life, so that she could be here to hold him. As she always did, she remembered it was Sam and Dean who had given her that miracle. Soon, they'd be a family again. And this time, she'd make sure it stuck.

She set that thought firmly in her mind when Sam's car pulled up an hour later and Dean went out to meet him. She kept her eyes on Katie, and didn't let herself look out the kitchen window. Some things, she didn't need to know.

* * *

For Sam, dinner was a kind of torture. He'd missed all of them more than he could stand, and being around Dean had him short of breath and more emotional than he could handle easily. He'd spent three months walking on spiritual planes, learning techniques he could use to fall back on if he ever slipped and let the darkness inside him get out of control again. Dean had been there in his visions, in his dreams, so omnipresent that Sam had barely registered how much he missed the real thing until Dean was right there, larger than life, his arms around Sam and his face hot against Sam's neck.

It didn't help that Dean couldn't keep his eyes off him. Sam wasn't any better off. He felt painfully self-conscious of that fact, hoping it wasn't as obvious to Julie as he thought it must be. Some way to thank her, he thought—wave it in front of her face that her husband and his brother wanted nothing more than to duck into a room somewhere and make out like horny teenagers. They hadn't kissed outside, but Sam's mouth watered when he thought about it, his whole body aching for it. Julie looked good enough to eat, too, and after four months in the desert, Sam felt like he was sixteen again, his head full of images that made him blush.

He distracted himself as best he could by asking about the kids, listening to Katie tell him about her new favorite books, letting Dean and Julie tell him everything he'd missed the last few months. If they noticed he hadn't eaten much, neither of them said anything.

When dinner was finally over, Julie turned to Dean. "You mind cleaning up?"

"Sure," he said easily. But she'd caught him off guard; he cleared his throat, his eyes flicking to Sam's.

Julie lifted RJ out of his chair and put him into Sam's arms, then nodded toward the stairs. "Come on, give me a hand," she said. Sam had no choice but to do as she asked.

Bath time was also play time, and Sam found himself relaxing despite himself under Julie's amused gaze, fully engaged with the task of keeping a baby and a very active toddler occupied while getting them clean. RJ's personality had developed more than Sam would have believed possible. He was officially the most laid-back kid Sam had ever met—an assessment Julie agreed with—and seemed likely to live up to his name in that regard. As for Katie, she'd discovered the word "why" with a vengeance.

"You're still great with them," Julie said, when he'd read Katie _One Fish, Two Fish_ and came in to find her putting RJ down. "They missed you."

"Not as much as I missed them," Sam admitted. He stood beside her, watched her lean in and kiss RJ, a shiver touching his neck like someone had walked across his grave. Six months tomorrow, he thought, as RJ studied him with his wide-eyed, thoughtful stare. Sam couldn't help thinking of his own nursery, of fire, and blood. Azazel was long dead at Dean's hand. Lilith was dead at Sam's. Still, Sam wouldn't be able to rest easy until tomorrow was a memory, any more than Dean would. Some things were written into their bones.

"I'm glad you came," Julie said then, and Sam could tell she meant it. She'd done everything she could to show it since he'd walked in the door, and he didn't begin to know how to thank her for that.

"Dean told me you told him to ask me."

"I did." She shrugged. "Guess I missed you, too, maybe. A little."

"Yeah?"

"Looks that way. Kinda hoping you'll stick around, to tell the truth."

Sam felt her eyes on him, but he couldn't bring himself to look at her. His heart thumped, his stomach doing a slow flip as he heard something in her voice that made him think she meant more than as a live-in babysitter. Then she reached out and closed his hand in hers. "Can you tell what I'm thinking?" she asked, voice soft.

Sam closed his eyes and swallowed. He couldn't read her thoughts, not like he could with Dean, but he got the feeling: a warm, low tingle that spread through him, stirring his blood. It was more than he'd dared hope.

"Does Dean— does he want that, too?" he asked at last.

"I think you know the answer to that."

Sam nodded. Finally, he made himself look at her. What could he say to make this less dangerous for all of them? He didn't know if he could take it if they tried and it didn't work; he didn't know if he'd survive the look on Dean's face if Sam fucked this up somehow.

"I'm not sure I know how to do this. I mean, without hurting anybody."

"This is new for me, too," she admitted. "It's not something I ever expected to want."

"So, why do you?"

She smiled, a smile so bright Sam couldn't look away. "Sometimes love surprises you."

More than once, Sam had told himself he was the only one who could ever love Dean for everything he was, the only one who understood what his brother was made of. It was true that no one else would ever really know Dean the way that Sam did—but Julie got it. She might not have grown up with them, but she saw them for what they were, saw Dean for the miracle he was, and loved him with her whole heart. If there was one thing Sam could relate to, it was loving Dean enough to try anything, do anything, no matter how crazy.

He dropped his gaze, face warm. "Listen, it's not just Dean, for me. You know that, right?"

"Me either, funny enough."

Sam's eyebrows twitched. "Is he going to be okay with that, do you think?"

Dean came into the room, then, and Sam wondered how much he'd heard. He went to Julie and wrapped his arms around her from behind. "Trust me, I am so okay with that." He kissed the back of her neck, then met Sam's gaze, his eyes turning up at the corners, laugh lines deepening. "I'm good."

* * *

Downstairs, Dean turned on the fireplace while Julie put on music, some kind of electronic club mix with a sensual beat. Sam poured the drinks, heavy on the whiskey, but he only sipped at his, wanting to be fully present for every moment of this.

He leaned against the back of the couch and watched Dean and Julie dance for a while, moving slowly to the music. He hadn't known Dean knew how to dance to music like this, but it shouldn't have surprised him. Dean was a creature of the senses, and Sam enjoyed watching them together, anticipation curling thick and hot in his belly. Julie's dark hair spilled loose over her white sweater and Dean's hands.

"Come here," she told Sam at last, eyes bright over Dean's shoulder.

He did as she asked, setting his drink down and closing the distance between them to stand behind Dean. "Here?" he asked, resting his hands tentatively on Dean's hips. He could feel the tension in Dean's body, but Dean bent his head, let out a breath, and didn't pull away.

Julie's hands closed over Sam's, spreading his fingers out against his brother's hips. "Yeah," she said, "like that." She reached up and wound a hand in Sam's hair, tugging him gently downward. "He likes that. Can you feel it?"

Sam bent his head to the back of Dean's neck, closing his eyes as he breathed in. Dean smelled so damn good. Sam's mouth watered. "Tell me what to do," he whispered, a tremor running through him at the warm curve of Dean's ass against his thighs, the feel of Dean's solid strength under his hands. He could feel the muscles jumping under Dean's skin, the effort it was costing him to hold still and not say anything.

"Bite him," Julie said, low and insistent.

Sam felt the shiver Dean tried to suppress. His own heart leapt, then resumed its heavy, irresistible rhythm of hunger and desperation, barely in check. God, this was going to kill him.

He tasted Dean's skin, the tip of his tongue against the warm hollow where Dean's shoulder met his neck. Dean was so hot there, the smell and taste of him made Sam lightheaded. He felt himself shaking, and his cock was a rigid line in his pants, as hard as if they'd been at this for hours.

Gently, he bit at the muscle, feeling Dean sway minutely into his hands. At that subtle encouragement, Sam opened his mouth and let himself taste, let himself suck and bite gently at the sensitive skin. He was vaguely aware that Julie tilted her head and leaned in, too, nuzzling and biting at Dean's neck on the other side.

"Jesus," Dean breathed at last, swaying back against Sam, his hands finding Sam's at his hips and fumbling to hold on. "You trying to kill me?"

"Tell us how much you love it," Julie told him, angling his head back so Sam could get better access, pushing forward so that Dean was pressed between them. "We want to make you feel so good, don't we, Sam?"

Dean groaned, and Sam couldn't help himself. He spread his fingers wide and pushed them up under Dean's shirt, skimming the muscles of his belly and flanks and chest, teasing gently at his nipples. When Dean's head fell back, Sam bit at his mouth and kissed him, heart pounding as his tongue sought Dean's, as they licked at each other's mouths and tried to get more of each other at the awkward angle.

With Jules and Sam double-teaming him, Dean was helpless to fight his responses, and neither of them could resist Dean when he was like that, shivering with need and desperate for more of everything. They got him onto the couch and Julie went down on him, getting his pants open and her mouth on his cock while Sam held him down and kissed him with deep, merciless abandon, completely absorbed in it. He didn't care if he never took a breath again that wasn't about getting more of Dean's tongue in his mouth. Dean's face burned hot against his. Sam could feel Dean tremble with the effort to keep himself under control, without much success. He held on to Sam with one hand and Julie with the other, struggling to make it last.

They were all of them breathless, the music a seductive, irresistible rhythm Sam felt down to his bones when Julie broke away and looked up at them, eyes hot.

"Love watching you," she said. "Sam, I think I could watch you kissing him forever."

"Works for me," Sam admitted. He bent his head and bit at Dean's neck, then soothed the reddened place with his tongue. His hand closed around Dean's amulet, the pendant warm against his palm. His cock pressed diamond-hard against his zipper, excitement a live thing inside him, red-hot and disbelieving.

"Cut it out, both of you," Dean ordered. "S'fucking embarrassing." His voice was thick with need. When Sam leaned in again Dean held his head still, kissing him deep and licking into Sam's mouth. Dean gave a soft, desperate grunt, breath rushing out of him, and Sam broke away for a second to see Julie going down on him, Dean's stomach muscles taut and his thighs trembling. Sam claimed Dean's mouth again, tongue diving deep, and Dean let him, let Sam swallow his groan. He clenched a fist into Sam's shirt and finally came apart in helpless shudders.

Sam let him breathe, and caught Julie's eyes. Her lips were wet, her breath coming fast. Sam leaned down without thinking and kissed her, licking deep into her mouth to taste Dean, feeling dirty and hot and daring when he did it, knowing Dean's eyes were on them. The taste of Dean's come made him groan softly and bury a hand in Julie's hair so he could hold her still and get more of it. "Fuck, you gotta be kidding me," Dean said, watching them.

"You taste so good, baby," Julie said, breaking away to look into Sam's eyes. "Doesn't he?" she asked.

"Yeah," Sam breathed, his eyes strafing over her face, her flushed cheeks, her swollen lips. His gaze flickered to Dean's, and he jerked his chin up. "Move back," he said. "Come on, help me with her."

Dean did as Sam told him without hesitating, shifting and lying back so Sam could strip off Dean's jeans. Sam pulled Julie up and laid her out between Dean's legs so that she leaned back against Dean's chest. They were both watching him now, willing and ready, and the sense of certainty and power that flowed through Sam was better than the best drug. The way they both looked at him was love and lust and approval all rolled into one addictive package, and Sam never wanted it to end.

He held Julie's gaze as he unfastened her jeans, then tugged them gently off her slim hips and long, graceful legs. He couldn't get enough of looking at her. Dean's eyes on him, his pride as Sam acknowledged what a sexy woman she was, made him think that whatever was wrong with them, it was so deeply, fundamentally wrong that nothing was ever going to change it. It was like being thirteen again, watching Dean come home from a date and listening raptly as Dean told him everything. It was like being twenty-three and kissing Sarah Blake while Dean looked on, feeling that extra frisson of heat from knowing his brother was watching. It was better, because Sam was seriously getting off on the thrill of someone else knowing how he felt about his brother. He couldn't even feel ashamed.

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean said, as Sam bent his head and pressed his face to Julie's sex, slipping his tongue deep and licking her in a slow, gentle caress. "Oh, Christ. That is so hot."

Sam felt her shuddering, tasted how wet she was, a sweet, lemony burst over his tongue. He pulled back for a second, shifting further down the couch so he could get a better angle. "Hold her for me, Dean," he said. He was leaking in his jeans, so aroused it hurt. All he wanted was to sink himself deep into her, to kiss Dean and fuck her and lose himself in them both, but there'd be time for that. He let his eyes roam over Julie's body, pressed his lips to the scar that still rose in a hard line on her belly. She sucked in a breath, and he met her eyes, letting her see how much it meant to him that she would share this with him. That she could.

"It's been a long time since I did this," he told her, "so, talk to me. Tell me what you like."

He could hear Dean murmuring in her ear, could feel her trembling as he bent his head and licked into her again, then settled with his hands spread against her hips, holding her down and exploring her with his tongue.

"Like that," she said, when he gave a soft, gentle lick against a tender spot. Her breath caught when he did it again. "Oh," she breathed, like it was a surprise. "Yeah. Like that."

Sam lost track of time. He went down on her for endless minutes, lost in the slow, hypnotic rhythm that first made her breath come harsh, then made her start to writhe in his and Dean's grasp and beg, low under her breath. "Don't stop, please don't stop. Oh, God." Sam became aware that Dean's hand was on the back of his head, his fingers tangled in Sam's hair, his thumb pressing gentle circles at the cords of Sam's neck. Sam reached up without looking, wound his fingers in Dean's. When he paused momentarily for breath, he saw Dean playing with Julie's breasts, rolling her nipples gently between his fingers. She was moaning softly, almost endlessly now. "Please," she begged. "Please."

"Sam," Dean said, his voice rough. Sam looked up, licking his lips. "She needs you to," Dean told him. "Let me see you."

Sam's pulse rate rose, his heart pounding dully in his chest. "You sure?"

"Fuck, yes, I'm sure," Julie groaned, pushing him away. "Jesus, you're a tease."

Sam fumbled his jeans open, fluid slicking his hands. Christ, he was ready. He was going to come in about three seconds if he wasn't careful. He stripped. "Like this?" he asked.

"Yes, God," Julie said. "It's okay."

He checked Dean's face, and what he saw reassured him. It was too late to stop anyway; Julie had hold of him, and she guided him inside of her, wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him in.

It was all he could do to hold on, to take her in deep, slow strokes and try not to look at Dean, not to focus on the way his brother started a slow, insistent rocking motion that made it that much better, made Julie feel it more deeply and make small, desperate sounds of assent that unraveled what little self-control Sam had left.

It was Dean's fingers in his hair, winding tight in the curls at the back of his neck that made him lose it, finally, but it was okay because Julie was already gone, his last short, frantic strokes making her come apart in shuddering waves.

* * *

Sam got it together enough to push himself up, to help Julie up. They pulled the blanket down on the rug and Sam got the lights while Dean and Julie quietly made love. Sam felt more relaxed than he could remember ever feeling, a deep contentment flowing through him that he didn't question. He lay down with them and watched Dean move over her, drinking their pleasure in like it was sunlight, and he'd been a lifetime down in the dark. His hands wanted to stray, and he let them, unselfconscious as he helped bring them both to orgasm.

Afterwards, Julie slept, Sam and Dean on either side of her. Sam met Dean's eyes. Next time, Sam thought, he was going to spread Dean out like that. Let Julie hold him, let her watch while Sam fucked him deep and slow, made him beg and come apart like so much silk. His cock stirred at the thought.

"We're gonna have to get a dog, you realize," Dean said, his thoughts plainly running on a different track.

"Obviously."

"It's the only thing we can do."

"Mm." Sam studied him in the firelight, trying to read his face. "You sure you're okay?" he asked then, his voice low.

Dean blushed. "Seems weird to say it, but yeah."

"It _is_ weird. But good weird."

Dean gave a soft laugh. "Yeah. Definitely not where I thought we'd end up."

"If you change your minds—"

"Dude. Don't talk it to death."

"I'm just saying. It could get a lot weirder."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Nobody's changing their mind, okay? You're stuck with us." Dean closed a hand around Sam's arm, holding on.

And what could Sam say to that? "You and me?" he asked, emotion thick in his voice.

"Like always," Dean said, quiet and sure, and his certainty shone so bright, it was the only thing Sam could see.

~ _end_ ~

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time participating as a writer in a big bang challenge. I'll try not to let my experience with this story turn me off big bangs forever, because honestly, it was rough. I fretted about it a lot while writing, and can't thank everyone enough for all the kind and generous encouragement so many people sent my way—especially ruby_jelly, marciaelena and pat_t.
> 
> I expect that few people will want to read this story, and if anyone does make it through, they won't know what to make of it any more than I do. It's AU from season 3 by virtue of the fact that I wrote the prequel and the rough outline of this story in 2007. Of course, it's been Jossed and Kripked 400 ways to Sunday since then. Lisa Braeden occupies the same narrative role that Julie does: Dean's potential apple-pie ticket out of the hunting life. That made writing Julie all the more difficult, and the appeal of this story that much narrower. To make things worse, the memory-wipe in 6x21—I headdesked, no lie. It was the one decent surprise plot development this story had going for it, or so I thought. Oh, well.
> 
> This story could have been longer than it is. It was originally conceived as two separate stories, and I think could have been more. But so much of what I would have wanted to see is better written in maygra and eighth_horizon's Salvation series, and at a certain point it was enough for me to be able to see that eventual future, without having to write it. In so many ways, the time for this story has past; canon has left this version of Sam and Dean behind.
> 
> But something compelled me to finish it, and it wasn't just the deadline. I'd posed a question to myself with "And the Devil Makes Three," and somehow, I could never quite let it go. The question was, could Dean really have it all? Was it possible for him to find a life partner who got him, to have kids and be a dad, to find a path in life that gave him a positive, healthy self-image—and still keep Sam in his life? And the flip side of that: was it possible for Sam to have Dean in any permanent sense without destroying Dean's chance at that life? Without, in essence, destroying him?
> 
> Sam Winchester is a terribly lonely figure, and the longer the show goes on, the more I feel that to be true. Dean is lonely, too, of course, but as the show has demonstrated, Dean has no shortage of people around him with whom he can connect, if he chooses. Bobby, Castiel, Henriksen, Jo, Lisa, Ben, Cassie—even characters like Gwen and Tessa. Sam, though, has only Dean (and Ruby), and given his obsessive nature, the baggage between him and Dean, and the darkness he carries, it's hard for me to envision an ending for him and Dean together that doesn't end in death, or the tragic destruction of Dean's selfhood.
> 
> This doesn't, of course, mean that I don't love Sam. I think anyone who's read anything I've ever written about SPN knows that Sam is the reason I'm here. I love the guy, and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. I want him to learn the consequences of his actions. That's why season 6 brought me back to the show despite its unevenness; I'm a sucker for a Sam who says things like, "I gotta fix what I gotta fix," and means it. The Sam who sends Dean to Lisa and Ben, and the Dean who lets him, give me hope that maybe they can break out of their self-destructive patterns after all.
> 
> Still, I couldn't help wondering: if the Apocalypse hadn't happened—if Sam and Dean's relationship had been spared the betrayal of season 4, and if Ruby and the angels hadn't driven them apart—then was Sam doomed to make a tragic mistake somewhere else along the line? If he wasn't driven to it by Dean's death, then might he do it for Dean's sake, in a misguided act of self-sacrifice that would still blow up in his face?
> 
> And finally, I found myself exploring themes of infidelity and marital compromise that don't rest easy—not for me, and not, I suspect, for anyone who manages to read this. I'd created quite the conundrum for Sam, Dean, and Julie in the first story, and somewhere along the line it became imperative to find a way out for them that didn't rely on some convenient plot twist, and didn't end with Sam martyred and alone, or Julie kicked to the curb (or fridged).
> 
> That's the only explanation I have for why this story wouldn't leave me alone. And now, at last, it's done!


End file.
